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University Microfilms International 300 North 2eeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St. John's Road, Tyler's Green High Wycombe, Bucks, England HP1Q 8HR 78-11,961 LACKEY. Louana M., 1926- MATERIALS, METHODS, ANDJECHNIQUES OF MODERN POTTERY-MAKING IN ACATLAN, PUEBLA, MEXICO. The American University, Ph.D., 1978 Anthropology, archaeology

University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan 4sio6

© 1978

LOUANA M. LACKEY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MATERIALS, METHODS, AND TECHNIQUES

OF MODERN POTTERY-MAKING

IN ACATLAN, PUEBLA, MEXICO

by

Louana M. Lackey

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Anthropology

Signatures of Committee:

Chairman : id.

Dean of the College j ■ " 7 /Î7Ÿ I'*':, 1'^ ' V Date

1978

The American University Washington, D.C. 200l6

the AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PLEASE NOTE:

Several pages contain colored illustrations which will not reproduce well. Filmed in the best possible way. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS INTERNATIONAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Neither this dissertation nor my academic career thus far would have been possible without the help and encouragement of many people. The listing must begin with Harvey C. Moore, who introduced me to the disci­ pline of Anthropology and encouraged my reentry into academic life after an absence of more than 30 years. Other members of the Department of

Anthropology also share the responsibility for ray success: Jim Bodine and Bill Leap, both of whom taught me as an undergraduate and have always been helpful with citations and answers to questions. No longer a member of the Department but an equally important influence was Ellie McDowell, who also taught me as an undergraduate and, more importantly, introduced me to the joys of field archeology at Glen Haven, West Virginia, where there were many late night discussions by the campfire, ranging from the esthetics of Eastern Woodlands pottery to the mechanics of motor­ cycles. Gary Hume, also gone, was influential in directing my interests away from lithic technology and into their present focus. Lucille St.

Hoyme, who never formally taught me as a student, was as interested in my progress as if she had and left her own department's Christmas party to help me find the "missing link," a Xerox copy of a heretofore unfindable article and the final one I needed.

Probably the longest suffering member of the Department was Charlie

McNett, my adviser since my admission as an undergraduate and more recent­ ly Chairman of my Dissertation Committee. My debts to him are too great to express here adequately, I also am almost as deeply obliged to the other two members of my committee. Matthew Norton, a geologist, now Chairman

iii of the Department of Chemistry, guided me through the mysteries of the polarizing microscope and X-ray crystallography to the final analysis of the materials used in the Acatecan clay hody. Frederick R. Matson of the Anthropology Department of the Pennsylvania State University answered my queries, provided citations, read my papers, looked at my slides, and made me feel as welcome on his campus as if I had been one of his own students.

I am in dept to three other anthropologists for the present study.

Norberto Gonzalez Crespo, now the State Archeologist of Yucatan, was the first to encourage me to visit Acatlan, excusing me for several days from working on excavations at Las Pilas, Morelos, in the summer of 1973.

A discussion of this visit with George M. Foster crystallized my inten­ tions and set the research in motion. The way was smoothed by Fernando

Camera Barbachano of INAH, who issued the necessary permit, wrote letters of introduction to the authorities in Acatlan, and generally expedited my work. Appreciation is also due the wonderfully helpful librarians at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

The professional appearance of the dissertation is due to the work of two people. Frederic A. Ritter, Chairman of the Department of

Geography at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, drew the maps. Shirley Hicks, a long-time friend, took time from her own graduate studies to type the final copy, the latest in a long succession of kindnesses.

The research was made possible by a University Dissertation Fellow­ ship, as well as financial help from my father and step-mother, an expression of confidence that helped almost as much as the money. The

iv confidence and encouragement of my daughters who learned to cook and clean, and wash and iron, and generally took over for their absent mother was equally important.

Most important of all were the countless hours spent by my incredible husband over the years since I entered The American Univer­ sity. He typed and retyped my undergraduate and graduate research papers, editing, picking up dangling participles, frowning at poor sentence structure and misspelled words. He stood by through phonemes, edge angles, comprehensives and field research. Without him I would have become a second-time college drop-out. To him I dedicate this dissertation with love. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii

LIST OF F I G U R E S ...... viii

Chapter I, INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Some of the Problems Some Possible Solutions The Present Study

II. ACATLAN 16

Geographic Setting Historical Background Present-Day Acatlan

III. POTTERY AND P O T T E R S ...... ^2

Pottery The Pottery Sellers The Potters

IV. MARIO MARTÎNEZ E S P I N O S A ...... 71

The Martinez Family The Household The Family as a Work Unit

V. THE MATERIALS OF POTTERY-MAKING...... ^7

The Clay Body Paints Fuel

VI. THE IMPLEMENTS OF POTTERY-MAKING......

Tools Equipment Facilities

VII. MAKING THE POTTERY...... 133

The Basic Process Molded and Coiled Vessels Molded and Modeled Vessels

vi Compound Molded Objects The Vertical-Halves Mold Complex Constructions

VIII. FINISHING THE P O T T E R Y ...... l68

Drying the Wares Painting and Polishing the Wares Firing the Wares Unloading the Kiln

IX. LEARNING TO BE APO T T E R ...... 203

Traditional Ways New Ways The Trader as Teacher

X. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS ...... 228

Archeological Implications The Future of Ceramics in Acatlan Further Note

APPENDIX...... 21+7

GLOSSARY...... 21+8

REFERENCES CITED ...... 2^h

V I 1 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

1. Mexico, showing area of study...... IT

2. Southern Puebla...... 18

3. Acatlan...... 25

k. Petates, baskets, and cordage in the Sundaymarket., . 32

5. Domestic wares in the Sunday market...... 34

6. Cantaros with traditional painted decoration...... 35

7. Pottery vendor...... 36

8. Glazed ollas and cazuelas from Puebla...... 37

9. Glazed ollas, factory-made wares, and Oaxacan chorreada...... 38

10. Plastic and metal wares...... 39

11. Making tortillas. A metate and mano are in the foreground; they are cooking on a comal■ hi

12. Inside the Casa Lopez......

13. Pottery church...... ^5

14. Lizard......

15 . "Mickey Mouse."......

16 . Candleholder paintedwith acrylic and decorated with grecas...... ^9

1 7 . Taking two "trees-of-life" to the dealer...... 50

18 . A barril...... 52

19 . Rain spouts...... 53

20. A chimenea...... 54

21. Two chimeneas...... 55

viii 22. Burro with four cantaros...... 56

23. The Loceria Juarez...... 58

24. The Casa L6pez...... 59

25. Lopez truck...... 62

26. Attempting to sell a few wares at the Sunday market. . 66

27. Preparing dinner...... 78

28. Mario, hatless, watching the ballgame...... 8l

29. A workspace...... 86

30. Source of barro negro...... 89

31. Source of barro negro...... 90

32. Mining arena...... 92

33. Loading the burro with arena...... 93

34. A neighbor mining tierra Colorado...... 94

35. Flailing arena...... 97

36. Sifting arena...... 98

37. Mixing the dry ingredients...... 99

38. Mining tinta with a pica...... 105

39. The fuel vendor...... IO8

40. Sandal soles in the Oaxaca market...... 110

41. Dense black smoke from burning rubber...... Ill

42. Thinning a rim with the palo de sauce...... II6

43. Using a lump of clay as a tool...... 117

44. Setting a ladrillo onto a parador...... 119

45. Turning the parador...... 120

46. A "tree-of-life. " ...... 122

47. Convex molds...... 123

XX 48. Molca.1 ete molds...... 124

49. The drying yard...... 129

50. The kiln...... 131

51. Flattening the clay...... 135

52. Placing the paste on the mold...... 136

53. Thinning the walls with elote...... 137

54. Removing the mold...... 138

55. An anfora...... l42

56. Making toes on a toad...... l48

57. Two goats...... 150

58. Two mac et as...... 151

59. Using the measuring stick...... 154

60. Cutting the openings in a mac et a...... 156

61. Braseros...... 157

62. LëCmparas...... 159

63. Frog and bowl with tripodal support made by children...... 16I

64. A "tree-of-life."...... l63

65. Two small "trees-of-life."...... l64

66. Oscar filling pits and small cracks with tinta...... 173

67. Salvador polishing an urna...... 175

68. Painted relief decoration...... 177

69. Loading the kiln...... 179

70. Loading the kiln...... I8I

71. Covering the kiln with wastersherds ...... 183

72. The completed sherd covering...... l84

73. Adjusting the sherd covering. The pyrometer is visible resting on a cement block...... 185

X 74. Reduction firing, July 3, 1975...... l86

75. Reduction firing, July 12, 1975......

76 . Oxidation firing, July 19, 1975...... ^^8

77 . Oxidation firing, July 23, 1975......

78 . Reduction firing, August 2, 1975...... 190

79. Reduction firing, August 13, 1975...... 191

80. Adding fuel...... 194

81. Covering the kiln with mud...... 19^

82. The finished covering...... 197

83. Unloading the kiln...... 199

84. Dusting a chimenea...... 200

85. Washing a toad...... 201

86. Delivering the wares...... 202

87. Rocking the baby...... 205

88. Work resumed...... 206

89. Juan, at 12, making a toad...... 212

90. Salvador watching his father make a turtle...... 213

91. Kangaroo "tree-of-life." ...... 215

92. Reverse of Fig. 91 and a single example...... 2l6

93. Mario helping Salvador......

94. A ceramics class...... ^^9

95. A slip-cast head with three bowls...... 221

96. Mermaid by second-year student...... 223

97. Some other student work......

98 . "Mitla" blanket in Teotitlan...... 237

99. "Miro" blanket...... ^38

xi 100. "Picasso" blanket...... 239

101, Blanket of unknown design provenience...... , 240

x n CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Some of the Problems

Ceramics are probably the most numerous of the artifacts with which an archeologist has to deal. Frequently, these have been so numerous that such an experienced researcher as Willey has complained of the problem of "literally tons of potsherds" (l96l:230). There are two reasons for these great numbers of sherds: the first is, of course, the remarkable permanence of the substance; the second, the innumerable uses to which man has put fired clay. Although he terms his list incomplete, Matson (1965:212) mentions some of these uses.

Included are such diverse forms as beehives, sling stones, coffins, lamps, sickles, and hoes, among others, as well as "pottery in endless variety." Once broken, these objects have added to the "tons of pot­ sherds" that await the attention of the archeologist.

He has used these potsherds to answer an impressive number of the questions put to them. In his efforts to reconstruct man's activities in the past, the archeologist has asked the classic questions of the veteran newspaperman: Who? What? Where? When? and Why? Only very recently, and as yet too infrequently, has he added "How?" to his list of questions. Often, when this last question has been asked, the an­ swer tells us only how the archeologist thinks that the artifact or the structure had been used. Far less often has the archeologist told us how he thought that the artifact or structure had been made. This is

1 particularly true of pottery, for despite the great amount of it that he finds, many an archeologist, either "old" or "new," has been guilty of forgetting the "Indian behind the artifact."

The "old" archeologist was interested in historical reconstruction; his emphasis in ceramic studies was on their form and decoration. Webb

(1972:125) has coined the rubric "Carnegie-Peabody Co-Tradition" to describe this school. Many Mayan site reports, for example, belong to this category, with long lists of sherd types and varieties included either as an appendix or as a separate volume. Pages are filled with sherd descriptions sorted into groups according to surface finish and decoration. The "paste" is described, including the temper; the shape is reconstructed; and the vessel is named. Probable functions of these wares are sometimes described, but manufacturing techniques, excluding an occasional handle said to be mold-made, are not discussed. "Poorly fired," a term found in one site report, was not further explained.

The "new" archeologist continues to base much of his work on ceramic typology. Computer techniques eliminate much of the tedious work involved, as wares, types, subtypes, and varieties are used to answer new kinds of inquiries put to them. Typical of this type of research are such studies as those by Freeman and Brown (1964:126-154),

Deetz (1965), and Longacre (1970). They ask if the pottery types found can be correlated with house type or room use and if changes in residence and social organization can be correlated with changes in design attri­ butes. The increase in research of this nature can itself be correlated with the increased use of the computer as a tool of archeological research.

Other ceramic studies are based on technological, rather than typological analysis. As Peacock (1970:385) asserts. studies which consider typology alone are based on about half of the available data and knowledge of the composi­ tion is essential if the evidence is to be correctly assessed.

Within recent years, many new techniques have been developed for fine­ grained analysis of the ceramic fabric itself. Anna 0. Shepard's (1968)

Ceramics for the Archeologist is the classic work in this field. Peacock

(1970:375-389) reviews more recent chemical and physical techniques, which include optical emission spectrometry, x-ray diffraction analysis, and infrared spectrometry, as well as pétrographie analysis (an earlier method). Matson (1963:592), however, has put such procedures in a more appropriate perspective when he stressed that if

the mineralogical, physical, and chemical properties of pottery are selectively determined in the light of the archeological problem being studied, information can be obtained about the raw materials selected and used by the potter, their treatment before being formed into pots, the manner of fashioning the vessels and of firing them, and perhaps the uses to which they were put. The role of the notter as the active and controlling agent in these pro­ cedures must be kept in mind, and the function of his products in the community cannot be overlooked. We are concerned with the analytical data of products made by man, data which will help us better to understand this man's culture [italics added].

Matson makes an important point— to many archeologists, the sherd is almost an end in itself. These archeologists sift and sort their finds using ceramic typology to produce an answer (often in interminable de­ tail) as to the appearance of the wares, while the ceramic technologist continues to discover new ways to analyse their composition. Yet if the archeologist, as anthropologist, would keep in mind two adages, he might find answers to some of his questions more quickly. The first,

"the role of the potter as the active and controlling agent in these procedures," is Matson's (1963:592) statement earlier cited. The second is from a lesson in Hole and Heizer's (1969:172) undergraduate archeology text, which emphasizes that

people do things by habit and preference; that is, they have an ideal in mind when making artifacts. Most artifacts are the result of several separate stages of manufacture. Very likely there are alternate ways to accomplish each stage, and the way chosen may have no significant bearing on the use to which the artifact is put. The particular way a piece is made can, to a large degree, show the peculiar no­ tions the maker had about how the job ought to be done. Some methods of manufacture are characteristic of individuals or groups of people. If archeologists can distinguish these differences in method of manufacture and end result, they have an easy way of distinguishing between cultural groups even though to all intents and purposes the finished artifacts are functionally identical.

Many archeologists, unaware of the importance of distinguishing differences in manufacturing methods or possibly ignorant of the varied mechanisms involved, have dismissed the problem with one or two stock phrases, such as the "poorly fired" description mentioned earlier. A monograph by Grange (1968) on Pawnee and Lower Loup pottery is typical of this approach. In a total of 235 pages, only a single paragraph is devoted to_._manufacturing method.

Even in site reports that discuss manufacturing methods in greater detail, the analysis is not much more insightful. Often, the technique ascribed is inconsistent with the vessel described. In 1968, Shepard

(1968:391) outlined suggestions for classifying vessel-forming tech­ niques. She stressed the importance of defining primary forming tech­ niques rather than giving undue emphasis to secondary features, an error that is likely to lead to inconsistent terminology. Yet more recent site reports continue to reflect not only a misunderstanding of the dif­ ferences between primary and secondary pottery-forming techniques but have arrived at a no more consistent vocabulary for doing so. Indeed, despite Shepard's efforts, there has been little advance in descrip­ tion and little better understanding of pottery-making methods since

Richter (l923:xi), a classic archeologist, complained that ignorance of what is possible and what is not possible in clay working has led to

some surprising theories regarding the technique of Greek vases; and these theories have been repeated over and over again in our books on vases, for the simple reason that, not having any first-hand knowledge, we have copied these statements from one another.

Some Possible Solutions

To avoid both Shepard's "inconsistent terminology" and Richter's

"surprising theories," archeologists must improve their understanding of pottery-making methods, primary and secondary forming techniques, firing techniques, and material winning— in short, the entire process.

When he does this, he will better understand the role of "the potter as the active and controlling agent in these procedures" and will be better able to determine which "methods of manufacture are charac­ teristic of individuals or groups of people." To achieve these objec­ tives, the archeologist has access to two extremely powerful inter­ pretive tools. One is ethnographic analogy, which is, as Ascher (l96la:

317) states, one of the most widely used tools of archeological inter­ pretation. Frequently, however, the archeologist will be unable to find analogs that serve his needs. Despite Ascher's (l96la:'324) later statement that "the store of information on pottery manufacture and its associated behavior" is "copious," the useful literature in this field is, in fact, rather sparse. Matson (1960:44) explains the reason for this. The ethnographic literature abounds with references to phases of pottery manufacture, although seldom are the accounts complete because of a lack of adequate experience on the part of the observer.

Contributing to the scarcity of useful ethnographic analogs is the fact

that the study of material culture, as Leone (1972:26) explains,

has been so long neglected by ethnographers that archeo­ logists have seen themselves forced to build their own analogues.

Frequently, it has proven too late for the archeologist to find

a suitable area to do such a field study. The once "primitive people" have become "folk"; the once folk end of the continuum has become urban. The archeologist then finds that the best way to answer his

questions of function and process, method and technique, has been by trial-and-error attempts to duplicate the archeological evidence.

Replication, or as Ascher (l96lb:795) prefers to name it, the "imita­ tive experiment," can be used to

transform a belief about what happened in the past into an inference. The execution of an imitative experiment involves simulating in the present time that which is believed to have happened in the past in order to test the reasonableness of that belief.

The imitative experiment is increasingly used to answer the question of how the primitive potter made his wares.

Replication in ceramics studies can be grouped into three types of experiment: pottery-making, decorating, and firing. This last, firing experiments, occupies a mid-point between physico-chemical analysis and attempted manufacture and decoration of the vessel itself.

Under scrutiny are methods of firing, periods of firing, types of fuels employed, methods of fueling, temperatures reached, and firing atmosphere (oxidizing, reducing, or some combination of the two). Investigation has generally taken one of the two forms; the carefully controlled laboratory experiment or, in so far as possible, duplication of the firing methods of the society being studied.

Laboratory firing experiments have been conducted by Frederick R.

Matson. One study (Matson 1971:65-79) is of ancient Mesopotamian firing.

This research involved the use of clay, from Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, shaped into briquettes and fired at various temperatures and kiln atmospheres. The changes in the color of the briquettes under these varied conditions established a basis for estimating the firing tem­ peratures of Seleucia pottery, lamps, and figurines (Matson 1971:70).

Pétrographie thin-section analysis of both sample briquettes and Seleu­ cia figurines and vessel sherds confirmed the temperature indications provided by the color of the fired products (Matson 1971:72).

In her experimental firings, Shepard (1968:78-80) attempted to duplicate the methods of primitive potters. Both open and pit firing were studied in order to discover the differences in rate of temperature in­ crease and length of burning of dung, wood, and coal. The length of firing and method of fueling, as well as the temperature, affects the color of the finished product and the vitrification of the body. Open- firing temperatures peaked between 900°C and 970°C and reached a maximum of 1175*0 in the pit firing (Shepard 1968:78 ).

Ceramic decoration techniques have not played such an important role in archeological experiment as has firing. One important study in the field of Classic studies deserves mention. The black "glaze" paint on Greek vases, long a subject of some of the "surprising theories,” was finally solved in 1942 by Dr. Theodor Schumann, a German, although the results of his experiments were not available outside of Europe

until after 194$. His work, summarized by Noble (1960:308), demon­

strated that the black paint is not a glaze at all but is a slip pre­

pared from the same clay as the vessel. Noble confirmed Schumann's work

with spectrographic analysis, a method now used to differentiate be­

tween genuine Attic vases and spurious modern imitations that have been painted with more conventional ceramic glazes.

Gisela Richter, writing earlier on the subject of Greek pottery, admittedly could not duplicate the glaze decoration (1923:49), although

she did prove conclusively that they were fired only once. The enduring importance of Richter's work, however, lies in her successful attempts to duplicate the forming techniques of ancient Greek potters. Griffin and Angell (1935) were also interested in replicating forming techniques, although their interests lay in Eastern Woodlands pottery. In their attempts to duplicate these wares, they performed all the steps from gathering the raw materials and preparing them, through forming the vessels, to firing them. Griffin and Angell were particularly in­ terested in the coiling methods used and the technique of obliterating the coil marks with a cord-wrapped paddle. They concluded that

the determination of the method of constructing a vessel by the fracture lines is liable to be inaccurate unless, for instance, the lines of coiling have not been obliterated (Griffin and Angell 1935:5).

Frequently, when archeologists have found no evidence of coiling, they have used the term "lump-modeled" to describe the manufacturing method. "Lump-modeled" is becoming a handy catch-all term used to describe vessels of every shape, size, and description. According to the results of one replicative experiment, the shape and size of some of these vessels would seem to preclude this method of manufacture. As

Hodges (1965:115, 116) in his experiments at the University of London

Institute of Archaeology has demonstrated, once a "pinch-pot" or "lump-

modeled" vessel exceeds 6 to 7 inches, the bottom is no longer rounded

but becomes subconoidal.

After coiling and "lump-modeling" have been eliminated as pos­

sibilities, a third manufacturing method is suggested: convex-molding.

This widespread and probably ancient system seems not to have been de­

scribed in the literature of anthropology until Foster's (1948, 1955) work on modern Mexican pottery-making methods. Since then, MacWeish,

Peterson, and Flannery (1970:237), working in the Valley of Tehuacan in the State of Puebla, Mexico, have not only recognized molds and mold- made wares but have elevated these to the status of a horizon marker of the Late Post-classic. Further archeological work will most certainly extend the use of this method back further: in time and widen its spatial distribution.

-Convex-molding methods apparently have not attracted the repli­ cative experimenter, and there is little ethnographic description of the method aside from that of Foster. In addition to the two studies previously cited (1948, 1955), Foster wrote a brief paper on pottery- making in Acatlan, Puebla (l960:.205-2l4 ), and one article (1967a) which discuss convex-molding. Ascher (l96l:324) to the contrary, ethno­ graphic work in the field of Mexican pottery-making is not "copious."

Other studies include those of Thompson (1958) and Reina (l963:l8-30), both for the Maya area- Van de Velde and Van de Velde (1939) on San

Bartolo de Coyotepec and Hendry (1957) on Atzompa, both in the State 10

of Oaxaca; and Diaz (1966) on Tonala, Jalisco. Diaz (I966;l43,l44) discusses convex-molding briefly, but the other studies cited either concentrate on other aspects of pottery manufacture or, as in the case of Reina (1963:18-30), other aspects of pottery production. A more complete list would further emphasize the need for more work both in pottery-making methods and in some geographic areas as well.

Western Mexico, for example, including Colima and Kayarit, has been neglected both by ceramic ethnographers and, until recently, by archeo­ logists. Some of the most skillfully done forgeries of archeological ceramics are reputed to be made in this area, presumably by the same methods used for the originals.

Acatlan, an important pottery-making center in the southern part of the State of Puebla, has been almost as neglected as western Mexico.

With the exception of the brief paper by Foster (196O) earlier mentioned, little has been written, either about the town or about the area, and although there is reason to believe that this industry is of considerable antiquity, little archeological investigation has been done in the vicin­ ity. The need for this type of research is urgent, yet sites that have been buried for centuries can, presumably, remain so for a few years longer. More threatened are opportunities to study still extant tradi­ tional pottery-making methods. For a number of reasons, the traditional arts and crafts of Mexico are disappearing. Those that remain are under­ going rapid changes due to fading regional distinctions and the cheapening of products made for sale to an evergrowing tourist market. Due to better educational and employment opportunities, fewer young men are learning and following their fathers' trades. Some older artisans are also 11

taking advantage of this improved job market to abandon their crafts in

order to earn more money. There still remain, however, some enclaves where pre-Columbian craft techniques are still being followed. Acatlan

is one such enclave.

The Present Study

1 first visited Acatlan in the summer of 1973. Although 1 was there for only 3 days, it was during this visit that 1 became ac­ quainted with Mario Martinez Espinosa, a master potter, and his family and observed his work and that of his wife and sons. A discussion of this visit and of my observations with Dr. George M. Foster at the

AAA meetings in New Orleans in November 1973 reinforced toy conviction that Acatlan, both because of its importance as a pottery manufacturing center and because of its earlier neglect by anthropologists, would be a suitable site for a study.

When 1 returned to Acatlan in June 1974, 1 was accorded a warm welcome by the Martinez family and spent the summers of 1974 and 1975 working with them daily in the pottery. My ready acceptance by the

Martinez family and by the other potters of Acatlan lay, not in my role of anthropologist, but in the fact that I, too, am a professional potter. Instead of the classic status of anthropologist as participant observer, I spent both summers working with Mario Martinez as a journey­ man potter, a role to their advantage as well as mine. With the ex­ ception of the first two or three pieces of work I produced which were not up to standard (neither my own or that of Mario and his pottery merchant) and a few small pieces brought back to Washington, all of my 12

work 'belonged to Mario and was sold along with his own and that pro­

duced by the rest of the family.

While my pottery added a little to the family income, there were

other, less tangible, contributions. My presence in the pottery served

to relieve the monotony of the work in several ways. I provided a new

ear to listen to stories long familiar to friends and relatives and in

return I provided tales not heard before. Most of the family's relief

from the boredom of the work was provided by watching my inept bungling

in the early stages of learning the completely new set of motor habits

needed for a completely new and unfamiliar method of pottery-making.

My early questions, which showed complete ignorance of things that

everyone in the world was thought to know, also caused amusement, al­

though this was politely suppressed. Mario, however, in his achieved

role as master potter and his ascribed role as my teacher was extremely

patient in his demonstrations as to how things should be done and with

answers to my questions.

As I became more competent in Acatecan pottery-making methods,

our discussions became more technical. The relationship between master

and journeyman is a traditional one and, without exception, my questions were answered with clarity and frankness. I was allowed to participate

in every part of the process, from mining the raw materials, to loading

and firing the kiln, to carrying the finished work downhill to the trader. The trader, Adolfo Lopez Martinez, was also extremely frank

and helpful, both in relating the many recent changes that have taken place in Acatecan ceramics and in explaining present-day merchandising practices. 13

During the summers of 197^ and 1975, I shared the family’s social

and religious life and was introduced to some two dozen of their potter

friends who also permitted me to watch them work and answered questions.

I was freely allowed to photograph every aspect of the pottery-making

process, as well as the every-day lives of the potters and their families.

I weis asked, along with my camera, to parties, weddings, graduations, and

other social events and returned to Washington with about 2,500 photo­

graphs. During the summer of 1975, I was able to record temperatures of

several firings with a portable kiln pyrometer and built an experimental kiln fired with kerosene in Mario's patio. I returned in the spring of

1977 to visit the junior high school ceramics classes and to confirm

some of my earlier observations.

Traditional pottery-making may come to an end in Acatlân within another generation, although as yet there seems to be little recent change in manufacturing methods and techniques. Of particular interest to archeologists is the study of surviving pre-Columbian manufacturing methods and techniques and the separation of indigenous from intrusive techniques, tools, and materials. The enculturation of children and adolescents as they learn to make pottery is also of interest, as there has been little research into this aspect of pottery-making. While these problems are being investigated, some of the questions raised by

Foster (1965:^3) might be answered as well. He notes that little at­ tention has been paid to the social, cultural, and economic settings in which the manufacture of pottery is done. Most studies, he states,

reveal little about such things as the status of the potter in his or her society, how potters look upon their work artistically and economically, standards of workmanship and the range of variation within a community, and above Ik

all the processes that contribute to stability in a tra­ dition, which make for change and which may be involved in the dying out of a style.

I feel that assuming the role of journeyman potter (rather than

that of anthropologist) enabled me to obtain information that I could have obtained in no other way. Although intended primarily as a con­ tribution to the archeology of southern Puebla, this study, as a descriptive account of pottery-making by a potter, should be of use to ethnographers who are interested in the area. Chang (1967:228) has asked two questions:

(1) Is it possible and fruitful to reconstruct culture and history by classifying artifacts without recognizing or satisfactorily demonstrating cultural behavior? (2 ) Is there a recognizable logical and causal relationship between the physical properties and contexts of the arti­ facts and their relevance to the behavioral and cognitive systems of the makers and users?

Neither of these questions, he states, can be answered without rigorous ethnographic research. Yet many ethnographic descriptions of pottery manufacturing techniques are incomplete or inaccurate due to the re­ searchers' incomplete grasp of the processes involved. Richter

(l923:xi) complained of the failure of archeologists to understand how the wares were made. She feels that

many archeologists have, of course, seen potters at work in different places, or perhaps consulted potters on speci­ fic points but that is a different thing from getting a thorough knowledge of the craft oneself and learning once for all what is possible and what is not possible in clayworking.

Richter was a curator of Greek and Roman art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She returned to school to study pottery-making in order to

"gain new insight" into how the wares she worked with were made. 15

Richter was 50 years ahead of her time; other archeologists are now,

at last, interesting themselves in such studies. The increasing popularity of the imitative experiment in ceramics research reflects both a growing concern among archeologists as to how the vessels under

study were formed and fired, and the scarcity of ethnographies that describe these practices. In many parts of the world, it is too late for these latter studies; indigenous potters and their pots are long gone. In Mexico, although pottery is still, in many places, being made by pre-Columbian methods, its existence is so threatened that a case could be made for calling such a study one in salvage archeology.

The present study, of pottery-making methods in Acatlân, Puebla, could be so described, although it could at the same time be termed both an ethnography and an imitative experiment. CHAPTER II

ACATLAN

Geographic Setting

Acatlân is in the southern part of the State of Puebla, Mexico

(Fig. l). It is 153 kilometers south of Puebla, the State capital, and 62 kilometers north of the Puebla-Oaxaca border at l8°12'6" north latitude and 98°3' west longitude. In 196O, its population was reported as 7,086 (Tamayo 1962:^17). At an altitude of 1,213 meters above sea level, the town itself lies roughly in the center of the Acatlân Valley between the Sierra Acatlân and the Mixteca Baja, two of the meridional ranges which transverse the Central Plateau, connecting the Sierra

Madre Oriental and the Sierra Madre Occidental. One of the sharp hair­ pin turns taken by Highway 190, the Pan American Highway, in its route through these mountains passes through the center of the town (Fig. 2).

Acatlân's location, west of the Sierra Madre Oriental, is set apart from the humid winds of the Gulf Coast, and the climate is semi- arid, dry, and warm. Fuentes Aguilar (1972:79), using the Koppen classi­ fication, types it as BSh'wg— that of dry steppes, with the little rain falling predominantly in summer. Both the mean annual temperature and the monthly mean for all of the months is higher than l8°C. Mean temperature for January, the coldest month, is 22°C; April and May, the two warmest months, are both 27°C. During the rainy season. May through

August, rail will fall, usually late in the day or early evening, not exceeding 250 to 500 mm annually. 16 IT

110 105 100 95

MEXICO SHOWING AREA OF STUDY

30*

V. PUEBLA

IÏ9Ô]

Acatlan

25 25

20 20 MEXICO CITY

e Oaxaca

kilometers 110 105 100 95

Figure 1. 18

Izücar de Matamoros

San Juan Ixcaquixtia

190

Boqueréi

iTotoltepec ;

ACATLAN

EDO. DE PUEBLA EDO. DE OAXACA t

\ C h il /\

Huajuapan de Ledn

SOUTHERN PUEBLA kilom eters

Figure 2. 19

The Acatlan Valley is drained hotli by the Acatlan River, known

locally as the Rio Tizaa, and by the Mixteco River into which it flows

just south of Tecomatlan. The Mixteco is, in turn, a tributary of the

Atoyac, the principal watershed system of the State of Puebla. The

Atoyac rises in the north of the State, high in the Sierra Nevada near

the Puebla-México border, flows generally from the northwest to the

southeast until it reaches Molcaxac, where it turns sharply toward the

southwest, crossing the valleys of Matamoros and Chiautla before en­

tering the State of Guerrero. Known here first as the Mezcala, later

after passing the town of Balsas, Guerrero assumes its best known name, that of the Balsas River. Its lower course forms the border between

Guerrero and Michoacan before emptying into the Pacific Ocean at Petalco

Bay.

By whatever name, the Balsas is one of Mexico's major rivers.

It drains an area of approximately 112,320 square kilometers in the region bounded by the Transversal Volcanic System, the Sierra Madre

Oriental and the Sierra Madre del Sur. Major public works underway

in the Balsas River drainage include, among others, a hydroelectric plant in the lower valley and a storage dam at the confluence of the

Mixteco and the Atoyac (Puentes Aguilar 1972:U6). Acatlan has been a beneficiary of the Rio Balsas Proyecto Agua Potable which has brought pure drinking water to it and other towns and villages on the Balsas and its tributaries.

Both the Sierra Acatlan and the northeastern slopes of the

Mixteca Baja are covered with sierozem, or gray desert, soils. Here, according to Fuentes Aguilar (1972:99), the layer of humus is only a 20

few centimeters thick where it exists at all. Calcium carbonate is very close to the surface, uncovered to varying degrees by erosion.

The only vegetation sustained is that of low thorny forest with suc­ culent plants predominating. Cultivation is possible only under irri­ gation, and the principal use of these lands is for pasturing goats.

The valley, on the other hand, is composed of prairie soils con­ sidered semipodzolic. These have, as Fuentes Aguilar (1972:95) states, very different characteristics:

Horizon A is generally deep, dark gray to dark red with a varied and active microorganic flora. The surface struc­ ture of this horizon is generally granular due to the in­ fluence of vegetation. The interchangeable calcium content is high in spite of the manifest acidity, and there is little descending movement of iron and aluminum. Horizon B generally shows some accumulation of clay and, at times, has a lumpy structure that impedes the drainage. The color of this horizon is dark gray with a gradual transi­ tion to the mother rock and is generally rich in lime [my translation].

Natural vegetation in the Acatlan Valley is a low deciduous, seasonal forest that attains a height of between 8 and 15 meters.

Characteristic trees mentioned by Fuentes Aguilar (1972:105) include several species of Bursera, Ceiba, and Juliana. In association with these are found groups of thick-stemmed and fleshy-stemmed succulents.

Examples of these are organ and columnar cacti and prickly pear. With increasing altitude and aridity, the vegetation changes to that of spiny legumes and low thorny shrubs with a height between 4 and 8 meters.

Frequently, due to earlier land clearing activities, the vegetation consists of second growth acacia and mesguite.

Such secondary associations are widespread throughout the Balsas region according to Wagner (196^:251-253), and the original cover may 21

have been very different from that of the present. As Wagner (1964:

253) explains:

Most of the basin lands of the Balsas and Papaloapan have long held dense settlements, and the present state of their vegetation reflects very profound alterations through human agency. Undoubtedly the pronounced aridity in this area makes the survival of vegetation all the more precarious and the mark of man more permanent.

Historical Background

Mexican Route 190, the Pan American Highway, on its route through

Acatlân, retraces an ancient pre-Hispanic trail. This went from Itzocan

(now Izucar de Matamoros) through Tehuitzingo, Acatlan, Petalcingo,

and Chilato Huajuapan de Leon (Jimenez Moreno 1966:l4). Acatlan's

location on this road is seemingly recent, dating only from about the middle of the l6th century. In their history of the town, Tapia y

Marquez Herrera (n.d.:9) trace its origins:

The town of Tizaa was founded in the 12th century by a Mixtecan tribe that had left its original home under the leadership of its chief Tizaa (man of spirit). The place they chose to settle was at the confluence of three small rivers, now called Nopala, Chazumba, and Ramales. In 1445 Moctezuma I (llhuicamina) conquered the Mixtec Nation and named the town of Tizaa (a Mixtecan name) Acatlan, a Nahuatl name that can be translated "place of the reeds" (since sugar cane was not known before the arrival of the Spanish). About the middle of the 15th century Acatlan was re­ populated by another Mixtecan tribe that had come from Tecomaxtlahuaca in the direction of Tenochtitlan to see the king, Moctezuma I. They wanted him to arbitrate in their dispute with the people of Juxtlahuaca over possession of the lands they had settled. In passing Acatlan, the Tecomaxtlahuenses were invited by the original founders to take up residence in the town and were offered free plots on which to live and land to sow. Many accepted the offer and the others continued their march [my translation].

Unlike the Zapotecs, who had early allied themselves with the

Spanish invaders, the Mixtecs resisted. They built fortifications and 22

undertook a desperate and prolonged struggle. Not until 1533 when their last leader. King Umiyuchi, was captured by Francisco de Orozco, did the Mixtec Nation finally fall. In the division of Mixtecan lands

following this defeat, two cacicazgos were created in the vicinity of

Acatlan, both granted to women. One of these was to a Dona Rosa de

Mendoza of Chazumba, now in the State of Oaxaca, and the other to a

Dona Alexandra Villagomez of unknown origin. Upon taking possession of her new lands, this latter cacique had the people of Acatlan ex­ pelled from their original settlement. They then moved further south and refounded their town close to the Tizaa River on land belonging to the cacique Rosa de Mendoza (Tapia y Marquez Herrera n.d.:10).

When de Vera visited the town in 158I, he found a primarily agri­ cultural economy. He described the principal crops as corn, beans, chilis, and lime-leafed sage. Other cultigens included avocado, onions, radishes, lettuce, cabbage, colewort, mustard, mint, and parsley.

Other fruits and vegetables were found growing wild, including pepino and pitahaya, both of which are still utilized (de Vera 1907:104).

Dominican friars had founded a monastery in Chila sometime before

1571. Here, 38 kilometers to the southeast of Acatlan, they established schools for arts and trades, introduced sediculture and wheat, and in­ stalled a mill. Among their other activities, the friars also maintained the general headquarters for the Spanish conquerors. Before the end of the 16th century, two of these Dominican monks, Francisco Martin and

Pedro Fernandez, arrived in Acatlan as missionaries. Setting out to convert the Mixtecans to Catholicism and to build the first church in

Acatlan, the pair seem to have accomplished both aims; Acatlan was 23

raised to the status of a parish in 163O (Tapia y Marquez Herrera n.d.:ll). The church they built was destroyed by an earthquake in

1711, and in the following year, the present structure was started.

This church, San Juan Bautista, was finished in 1724, a baroque basilican edifice typical of its time. In plan cruciform with nave and side aisles, it has, as well as two cupolas and a bell tower, a large dome covered with turquoise-glazed ceramic tile which can be seen through­ out the valley.

A second church, El Calvario, was built in l824 on an elevated site overlooking the town some 8OO meters to the south of San Juan

Bautista. Mejic (1977:6) describes this structure as colonial in style, built of stuccoed brick. Also cruciform in plan, it has two towers, one over the crossing and the other over the sacristy. Its chief in­ terest lay in its image of "Christ of the Precious Blood" which had hung over the altar until destroyed by fire on February 24, 1977. It was this crucifix which, carried in procession from barrio to barrio, was given credit for curing a cholera epidemic that took more than 300 lives in the autumn of 1833. Its loss is deeply felt by the people of those same barrios, most particularly San Rafael, La Palma, and Las

Nieves. As yet, no decision (or agreement) has been reached as to a replacement.

For 6 months in 1862, according to Mejic (1977:6), El Calvario, both hill and church, had been turned into a fortress due to the "French intervention." Acatecans are proud of having fought under Morelos in the War of Independence and in every war since, including the Yankee invasion. Battles have raged up and down the valley and in the town 2k

itself. Fields have been laid waste, dwellings have been pillaged and

burned, and the people have been forced to flee to the hills. During

the Revolution, a single day, April 7, 1911, saw the destruction of the

postoffice, the bank, and the tax-collector's office while the town ar­

chives were put to the torch (Tapia y Marquez Herrera n.d.:45). The

route through Acatlan has been a convenient one for bandits, as well

as guerillas and armies. As recently as 1950, according to Simpson

(1971:342), southern Puebla was terrorized by gangs of pistoleros.

Sixty murders were committed in Acatlan alone, and "when the distracted

mayor called on the military for help, he was shot for his meddling."

Present-Day Acatlan

Intermittent earthquake activity, as well as wars and civil strife,

have taken their toll and, as a consequence, modern Acatlan presents

only negative evidence of its historic past. With the exception of

San Juan Bautista, little remains of the Colonial Period in present-day

Acatlan, although it was probably under the influence of the Dominicans

that the new settlement was laid out according to the Hippodamian grid

plan common to much of Latin America. At the center of town is the

zocalo. Parque Central, bordered on two of its sides by the Pan American

Highway. Across from the zocalo on the southern and western sides are

stores; to the east is the church. Buildings on the north include

those of the Red Cross, the police station and jail, and the Palacio

Municipal. This latter structure houses not only city offices, but

those of the munieipio and the distrito of Acatlan. As political en­

tities, a munieipio is approximately equivalent to a township in the

United States, and a distrito is similar to a county (Fig. 3). 25'

ACATLAN. 1977

1 km. to

5 km. to

3 km to 12 meters %

Figure 3 . Acatlân. lo San JuE^n Bautizo 7. Loceria Juarez 2. Zocalo 8. Casa L6pez 3. Plaza des Armas 9. Site of arena 4. Market 10. Site of tinta 5. El Calvario 11. Site of tierra colorada 6. Martinéz household 12. Site of barro negro 26

As much a consequence of its position as a political, religious,

and marketing center as well as its geographic location, Acatlan is a

busy and prosperous city. In driving time, it is almost exactly half­

way between Mexico City and the city of Oaxaca and is, therefore, a

convenient meal stop for tourists, truck-drivers, and the many buses

that use the Pan American Highway. It is also the starting point of

the newly paved road to San Juan Ixcaquixtia in the mountains to the

northeast. The great numbers of restaurants, food stands, and snack vendors, far out of proportion to the population of Acatlan, reflects

the brevity of most of these people's visits. Feeding transients is not a new thing with Acatecans. De Vera (1907:105) found as long ago

as 1581 that this was the principal method used by the townspeople to

earn enough to pay their tribute. In contrast, there are only two hotels in Acatlan, although a new posada, under construction for

several years, is now partially occupied.

At first glance, Acatlan does not exude an air of prosperity.

With the exception of the Pan American Highway and the road to San Juan

Ixcaquixtia, none of the rutted, hilly streets is paved. These alter­ nate between a state of gumbo during the rainy season and blowing dust the rest of the year. There are few sidewalks, as these are built and maintained by individuals in front of their own properties. As an outward indicator of success, sidewalks seem to run a poor third to the

TV antenna and the pila. A pila, or water storage tank, on the roof of a house indicates the presence of an electric pump and indoor plumbing. Many of the newer dwellings in the city proper are built of concrete blocks, although some adobe construction is faced with 27

stucco on the side facing the street and presents a similar appearance.

Houses are often painted with a quickly peeling, rather impermanent paint; pink, blue, green, and bright yellow seem preferred, although purple and red are also seen. City dwellings are inward facing, with few windows on the street. Many are compounds with one or two room single family dwellings surrounding a central communal patio or yard.

Often, these compounds are shared by extended families, although some are occupied as rental units by unrelated tenants. Houses in outlying areas are similar; flat-roofed and rectangular. Here adobe is more common than concrete block as a building material, and fences of growing cactus, rather than walls, demark the property lines.

The rapidly changing culture of Acatlan is more visible in the zdcalo and its surrounding streets than in the architecture of the town.

Burros and bicycles, motorcycles and VW Safaris, compete for parking space. Jukeboxes play norteamericano rock music alternately with the popular ballads of the Acapulco Tropical. The paseo is still practiced in the early evening in the park, but now teen-aged girls, unchaperoned, are wearing miniskirts or pants along with rhinestone-studded T-shirts, their long hair left unbraided in the gringa style. Teen-aged boys are letting their hair grow, and the really jip are sporting blue jeans.

Traditional dress for most married women of any age still includes the rebozo worn even with double-knit pants suits. Few men are seen wearing the traditional homemade white campesino shirt and trousers; factory- made ready-to-wear is the rule, rather than the exception. For men who have achieved some measure of success, the Yucatecan guayabera shirt has become a status symbol, signifying an escape from manual labor. 28

The acquisition of city clothing and other material culture of a rapidly industrializing nation is equated with success, prosperity, and progress in Acatlân. In general, Acatecans favor progress and change and take great pride in the steps that their community is taking towards modernity. They stress its many schools, the modern hospital with its seven doctors, and the planned $27 million peso clinic to he built by the Institute Mexicano de Seguro Social. A permanent indoor market has just been completed, and land has been purchased for a

$90,000 peso sports arena. Plans are also being formulated to build a library and museum, although these are still in the committee stage.

Another committee had petitioned President Echeverrla to establish a regional technical institute in Acatlan, renewing its request after the change of administration.

Acatlan's past is as much a source of pride as its present and future. Acatlan's survival through four and a half centuries of earth­ quake, epidemics, crop failures, and internal and external wars is fre­ quently mentioned. Acatecans attribute their ability to "stand the strain" both to the help of God and the saints and to the fact that they are Mixtecan. "Mixtecs don't give up like the Zapotecs."

Although the town is now primarily mestizo, the first Spanish families did not move in until the end of the l8th century (Tapia y Marquez

Herrera n.d.:15), and the Mixtecan heritage is still very strongly felt.

Graduation ceremonies at the local schools will often feature native dances. The Normal School graduation in July, 1975 presented an elabo­ rately costumed display featuring a light and sound show that incorporated

Mixtecan music, poetry, and dancing, along with burning copal which 29

filled the auditorium with heavy smoke. This spirit of indigenismo

is both fostered by, and reflected in, the monthly newspaper. La Mixteca:

Voz del Tesaha. A monthly column, Significado de, traces the origins

of local place names to their indigenous roots. Mixtepec, for example,

is derived from the Nahuatl mix(tli) meaning cloud, and tepee meaning

population; together they mean "people of the clouds" (Ortiz de Mon-

tellano 1975:^)*

La Mixteca is eagerly awaited each month by the townspeople as,

like most small town newspapers, it carries news of weddings, gradua­ tions, announcements, and advertisements. It also seeks to improve both its readers and their city. It is serializing Miguel Y. Tapia and

Simitrio Marquez Herrera's (n.d.) history of Acatlan, publishes brief histories of neighboring villages, and uses as space-fillers quotations

from the world's great thinkers— Aristotle, Goethe, and Martin Luther

King, to name but three. Its editorial policy is strongly in favor of progress through public improvements, and it decries the dirty unpaved streets, the "unhygenic" liquado stands, and public buildings in need of repair. In one lead article, the editor, Senen Mejic (l97^:l), pointedly praised the recent improvements, either completed or underway, in neighboring Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, an hour south on the Pan

American Highway. Particularly cited were the newly paved streets and the spacious new market. La Mixteca had long condemned the slowness of construction and the dirt, smells, garbage, flies, and crowded condition of its ancient outdoor market.

The new market, built of cement blocks, is located just behind and slightly uphill from the Palacio Municipal. It is bounded on the 30

east by the Plaza des Arinas, an open unpaved space on the north side of the z6calo. During the week, the new market building is adequate to house the vendors as only a small percentage is present to sell produce, notions, and a few odds and ends of clothing, although most of the liquado stands and cooked food stalls are open. In Acatlân, as in many parish centers, the big market day is Sunday and, to take advantage of the crowds, all of the stores are open, including furni­ ture and appliance stores that offer credit on "big ticket" merchandise.

Buyers and sellers are attracted from the entire valley and surrounding mountains, as well as entrepreneurs from Izucar and Puebla. Some of these latter bring in merchandise by the truckload; clothing, dry goods, grocery staples, hardware, and other commodities not available during the week. On Sunday, the market overflows the new building, the Plaza des Armas, its traditional site, and extends for several blocks in every direction.

Products offered for sale in the Sunday market reflect the primarily agricultural base of Acatecan economy. Sugar and corn are the principal cash crops, followed by truck gardening. Produce stands offer a wide array of locally grown vegetables and fruits, such as corn, beans, squash, chili peppers, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, plums, avocados, apples, figs, mangos, peanuts, and lemons. Also to be found are exotic imports from the tierra caliente, including bananas, pineapple, and chocolate. Pitahaya, pepino, and other wild fruits and vegetables col­ lected from the surrounding countryside are also offered, usually by country women who also, often, bring in their homemade baked goods, candy, preserved fruits, and goat's milk cheeses. Although a few cattle 31

are raised, goats are more important, both for meat and for dairying.

Pigs are numerous, and most people in the outlying areas will raise one

or more along with a few chickens, a turkey or two, and, if the family

can afford one, a burro.

Livestock is sold on Sunday on Ricardo Reyes Marquez, the street bordering the z6calo to the south. Also sold here is corn and other

seed, burro saddles, machetes, and all of the other items necessary to the farmer. The fields to the south of Acatlan are principally devoted to sugar cane. Most of this crop is trucked north to refineries and distilleries closer to Puebla. An unknown quantity is reserved to be distilled locally into untaxed aguardiente varying in quality, proof, and price. Many of the town's tiendas sell it, under the counter, for about 2 pesos for 100 milliliters. Sunday afternoon finds many men in­ toxicated as they stay too long in conversation at their favorite tienda while waiting for their women to conclude their business at the market.

Compared to larger market centers that enjoy a tourist clientele, such as Oaxaca and Cuernavaca, handcrafted offerings are few. For the most part, these few are functional rather than decorative and are lo­ cally made for local consumption. Each year, these face more competition from factory-made functional equivalents of metal, plastic, glass, and other materials. Petates are still sold (Fig. 4), as are market baskets and hampers woven in Amatitlan, a neighboring village. Mixtecan hat weavers from Yucunduchi, a tiny settlement in the hills east of town, bring in their week's work and continue to weave while waiting for customers. Carpenters offer unpainted furniture, including large and small chairs, tables, and hanging cradles, as well as burro saddles. 4

i' &

A

Figure 4. Petates. baskets, and cordage in the Sunday market. 33

A number of huarache makers offer handwoven sandals of raw, untanned

grey leather strips woven together and stapled onto soles cut from discarded automobile tires. It is uncertain how much longer any of these items will survive as market goods. Petates and small handmade chairs are giving way to "real" beds and chairs, as stamped metal, chrome, and plastic furniture is offered on "easy credit." Handwoven baskets, hats, and sandals are also being replaced. Plastic shopping bags and other containers are offered in the market at half the price of baskets of similar size. Hats and huaraches, however, are being replaced by more expensive, higher status substitutes. Sombreros from the factories of Sahuayo, Michoacan, and shoes from those of Leon, Guana­ juato, are no longer seen only on the very rich.

Potters who sell their wares at the market usually fire their week's work on Saturday and bring it into the market early Sunday morning. With the exception of a very few miniature and decorative items or special pieces made for the Day of the Dead or Christmas, the majority of the pottery is utilitarian and functional. Domestic ware predominates, such as moleajetes, ollas, cazuelas, cantaros, platos, and tazas (Fig. 5). Any decoration is simple, limited to a few strokes of white paint (Fig. 6), or a stamped or incised design. Next to these local black or redwares and often sold by the same vendor (Fig. 7), are glost-wares both green and chorreada from Oaxaca and black on red from

Puebla (Fig. 8), as well as factory-made cheap, glazed earthenware and milk-glass dishes with painted designs (Fig. 9). Also sold here are metal and plastic water bottles (Fig. 10) and aluminum pots and pans of the thinnest gauge. / i i

Q

»

Figure 5. Domestic wares in the Sunday market. 35

7

I. •■

...'„.i-.ii ...'A.. A i i . _ k i l s

Figure 6. Cantaros with traditional painted decoration. 36

S

«

Figure T. Pottery vendor. 37

( • *

# 0

1 I Figure 8. Glazed ollas and cazuelas from Puebla. 38

%

m

%

Figure 9. Glazed ollas, factory-made wares, and Oaxacan chorreada. 39

I

i

Figure 10. Plastic and metal wares, ho

Increasingly, Mexico's new wealth is changing both living pat­ terns and household inventories and, of course, the supply of goods for sale in the market reflects the demand. The mano and metate

(Fig. 11 ) are falling into disuse as corn is now ground into masa at the neighborhood molina nixtamel. The molca.jete is joining the metate as an artifactual relic. Fodor (1972:286) explains the rapidity with which the electric blender has replaced the moleajete. Its ability to make the intricate sauces of fresh or dried chilis ground together with herbs, spices, nuts, vegetables, fruits, and sometimes chocolate, in moments rather than hours has made the blender more popular in Mexico than in any other country in the world.

As yet, not all Acatecan women can afford the luxuries of chrome and plastic dinette sets, innerspring mattresses and box springs, blenders and television, and other more costly status symbols. Even a complete set of matching factory dishes or glassware is out of the reach of most. Little by little, however, the Cheaper pots and pans and dinnerware, as well as plastic pails and storage containers, are being substituted for more traditional ceramic wares. As a consequence, many potters have adapted to this dwindling demand by either changing their market or leaving the trade. Ul

Figure 11. Making tortillas. A metate and mano are in the foreground; they are cooking on a comST. CHAPTER III

POTTERY AND POTTERS

Pottery

Only a small percentage of the gross Acatecan ceramic output is

sold in the Sunday market. As demand for domestic wares has dwindled,

potters who have not abandoned the craft have turned increasingly to

the manufacture of artwares and novelties intended for sale to tourists.

These are not taken to the market but are sold instead to middlemen

who have established a number of shops along the Pan American Highway

where it enters the town from the north. Other pottery merchants come

to town periodically to load their trucks with these novelty wares which

they buy directly from the potter. Most of these itinerant buyers are

from Mexico City or Oaxaca; others come from as far away as Ciudad

Juarez.

Acatecan domestic wares sold in the Sunday market reflect a ceramic tradition of hundreds of years. Moser (1969:^80-83), for example, pic­ tures some Late Post-classic molcajetes that are almost identical to those still sold— only the shape of the feet has changed. The same can­ not be said for the tourist wares, however. These reflect not only the rapid changes that have been taking place in the last 20 years but serve to confirm Foster's (1960:212) contention that diffusion is wiping out many regional distinctions in ceramics. This phenomenon can readily be seen in a visit to one of the modern pottery shops along the highway.

Not as yet found here are wheel-thrown shapes, glost-wares, and high-

h2 h3

fired stonewares. With these exceptions, the work on display, all made in Acatlan, reflects a cross-section of ancient, as well as modern, wares from all over Mexico.

Archeologically influenced wares include Colima-like fat little dogs; Teotihuacanoid wall masks; the ubiquitous Aztec "calendar stone"; and more directly influenced grecas, volutes, and other minor decorative touches. These latter, as well as the now common highly polished red finish, were copied by Heron Martinez from some sherds found by IWAH archeologists in a surface survey in the area (Espejel 1975:77). The pre-Conquest stepped-fret design was a symbol that appeared very fre­ quently on Cholula Polychrome. Its first post-Conquest appearance was found, according to Kubler (1971:222), south of Mexico City in the murals painted between 1570 and 1580 in the Augustinian cloister at

Culhuacan. Kubler feels that

bits of empty decoration like the Culhuacan borders are important, however, as early dated examples of the most abundant category of "survival" art in existence, the category of tourist souvenirs decorated with archaeological themes. Enormous amounts of textile, pottery, jewelry, and painting have been emblazoned with the Aztec calendar disc or with the Tiahuanaco "sun-gate" figure. These empty revivals, without meaning beyond the vague evocation of place, first appeared as an industrial phenomenon about 1875.

Sharing the shelves of the Acatecan pottery shops with these

"empty revivals" is a bewildering diversity of wares of equally diverse design origins (Fig. 12). Other than such ordinary vessel shapes as bowls, cups, lamps, and other functional wares, shapes include archi­ tectural forms such as churches (Fig. 13), boats, houses, streetcars, and even merry-go-rounds. Animal forms include frogs, toads, lizards

(Fig. l4), owls, bulls, cows, goats, chickens, fish, and such exotic hk

? j

Figure 12. Inside the Casa Lopez. i+5

0

Figure 13. Pottery church. 1+6

Figure l4. Lizard. Ht

imports as Mickey Mouse (Fig. 15) and Donald Duck. Many of the wares

are copies of Oaxacan styles originally made by Teodora Blanco of

Atzompa or Doha Rosa of Coyotepec. Other once regional styles include

trees-of-life typical of Izucar de Matamores, Puebla; suns from Metepec

in the State of Mexico; and decorative painting techniques reminiscent

of Tonala, Jalisco, or Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan. Many of the archi­

tectural forms were originally conceived by Candelario Medrano of Santa

Cruz, Jalisco.

Colors of these objects include not only those of the natural clay,

a pinkish buff, but the highly polished red-ware mentioned earlier.

Black-ware (produced by firing in a reducing atmosphere) was, ac­

cording to Foster (l960:21l), introduced to Acatlan in 1955 by Cleo- tilde Schondube, a Oaxacan dealer. Post-firing decoration is limited to painting with acrylic colors on a background of dead white (Fig. l6).

This medium is said by ceramics dealer Adolfo L6pez Martinez to have been used only since 1973. The style originated in tempera-decorated wares intended for use on the Day of the Dead. With the introduction of a durable, washable, waterproof substitute for the impermanent tem­ pera, the practice of painting became very common. A number of people who are not themselves potters are now engaged in decorating wares

(Fig. 17). If they don't paint wares made by a member of their family, they will buy plain wares from the potter or a dealer, paint them, and resell them to a dealer. Painting is sometimes used to disguise badly fire-clouded wares that are thought not to be salable otherwise.

There is a third category of ceramic wares made in Acatlan, along with a third method of marketing. These are large, functional wares Figure 15. "Mickey Mouse." Figure l6. Candleholder painted with acrylic and decorated with grecas Figure IT* Taking two "trees-of-life" to the dealer. 51

made for domestic use and include large water storage barriles (Fig. l8), rain spouts (Fig. 19), and chimeneas (Figs. 20, 21). These last, more than a meter in height, are functional equivalents of the cast iron, pot-bellied stoves found in rural sections of the United States. They are more than adequate for their task of heating a one- or two-room adobe house. The barriles are used in almost every household that does not have indoor running water and a pila. The Rio Balsas Agua Potable project has brought fresh water as far as most people's patios but this is neither an unmixed blessing nor has it had much influence on the type of ceramic wares produced to carry and store water, as this source of supply is, as yet, somewhat undependable. The water is some­ times shut off for hours, either because of some problem at the water­ works or because of the town's electrical problems. To prevent being caught short of water, every well-run household will have three or four barriles which they keep filled with water from a hose when the water is running. Since these hold about 250 liters apiece, a considerable supply can be kept in reserve. In outlying areas where water is not being piped to individual households, central faucets are being installed to replace springs and other seasonal sources, and water is carried home from these, either by a child with a plastic or galvanized pail or by the family burro loaded with cântaros (Fig. 22).

The tinaja also used for water storage is slightly wider at the widest part and much narrower at the neck. The largest in Mexico, a meter in height and 80 centimeters in width at the widest part, are made in Acatlan by Raimundo Martinez (Espejel 1975:7^). None of these oversized wares is usually seen in the Sunday market. Most often, they mi

Figure l8. A barril. «

Figure 19• Rain spouts. 5H

'I

#

Figure 20. A chimenea. 55

I

I

1

Figure 21. Two chimeneas. i

Figure 22. Burro with four cantaros. 57

are made to order by the potter for the purchaser, although in the fall, dealers from Oaxaca and other cities will try to stock several dozen chimeneas for their local clienteles.

The Pottery Sellers

Almost all of the last kilometer of the Pan American Highway leading into Acatlan from the north is lined with places at which to buy pottery. Not all of these are the modern shops mentioned earlier.

Some are private houses with a few vessels on the walls or set on boxes and with a home-made sign offering the wares for sale. Few of the residents of these houses are themselves potters, though some are re­ lated to the potters whose work they are attempting to sell. Several roadside restaurants and refresquerias along this stretch of the high­ way also attempt to take advantage of their location by offering a few wares for sale. Tourists interested in buying pottery tend to. park their cars and visit several shops before making a final decision, often stopping for a refresco before doing so. The clustering together of the pottery shops works, therefore, to the advantage of both buyer and seller.

The number of stores that deal exclusively in pottery varies from year to year, as it is a business that requires a considerable initial outlay of capital before any return is realized. Not only is this original investment tied up but more money must be spent each week to maintain a coterie of potters in return for selling their work. As a consequence, there have been a number of failures in what has be­ come a highly competitive business. Two of the most successful pot­ tery shops are the Loceria Juarez (Fig. 23) and the Casa Lopez (Fig. 2k). 58

â

Figure 23. The Loceria Juârez. 59

I

4'

Figure 2H. The Casa Lopez. 6o

The first, the Loceria Juarez, is one of the oldest and is owned hy

Cirilo Juarez, an ex-potter who was mentioned by Foster (l960:21l).

The Casa Lopez moved to its present location, a large, new, well-lit

store on the highway in 1975.

The Loceria Juarez and the Casa Lopez are the only pottery shops

in Acatlan that advertise in Artesanos y Proveedores (Craftsmen and

Suppliers), an annual publication devoted to the merchandising of arts

and crafts. Possibly, this explains to some degree the success that

both stores have enjoyed. The Artesanos y Proveedores contains exhi­

bition announcements, crafts news, articles, and advertisements, as

well as a directory of subscribers. Although written in Spanish, the

editorial content is summarized in both English and French. It is the

only publication of its kind in Mexico and has a wide audience among those who purchase craft items for later resale. Artesanos y Proveedores

is also used by tour guides who find the directory useful. A busload of tourists can spend hundreds of pesos in the 30 to H5 minutes allowed

for a stop. Tour guides, as Norman and Schmidt (l973:130) explain,

depend on tourists for a living. A part of that living comes from steering you to their favorite shops, which pay them a kickback of 10 to 20 percent of what you spend there.

When tour buses stop at Acatlan to buy pottery, it is usually at either the Loceria Juarez or the Casa Lopez. None of the shops has prices marked on the wares; these are "adjusted" to allow for the particular situation— raised to cover a tour guide's kickback or lowered by bargaining.

Whether or uot their success can be attributed to their adver­ tising, both Juarez and Lopez are well-established traders with large 6l

and varied inventories of wares and a substantial investment in

buildings and equipment. Adolfo Lopez Martinez is a much younger man

than Juarez and has reached his present level of affluence gradually.

Many traders, he points out, have gone bankrupt by overextending them­

selves and by trying to do too much too fast. Lopez owns a small ware­

house on Carillo Puerto around the corner from his house, as well as

the new store on the highway. Many wares he stores here are overstocks

of items already on display in the store, but most are destined for

export to Mexico City and Oaxacan gift shops. Lopez’ wholesale busi­ ness seems to be as thriving and successful as his retail business and, in 19T7, he was able to purchase a new, bright red. Dodge pick­ up truck to increase his profits further by doing his own trucking

(Fig. 25).

Lopez does not plow all of his profits back into his business; some are used to support the good life that is the hallmark of the suc­ cessful businessman in Acatlan. These include, of course, the rooftop pila and television antenna and a sidewalk that advertises his success for all to see. The house inside is filled with furniture in the latest style from a store in Puebla, including a plastic dinette table with matching chairs and an overstuffed living room suite with clear plastic covers. Among other accoutrements are a telephone, a television, and a consola. The floor is tiled with glazed ceramic tile from Puebla and is covered in some places with rugs. A maid keeps the house in order, cooks, and takes care of the Lopez children, freeing Sra. Lopez to help with the business. 62

« 4

/ - A ' . ' !

%

Figure 25. Lopez truck. 63

Both the Lôpez life style and their material possessions are

typical of Mexico's emerging middle class. Their two preschool

daughters, for example, wear shoes and socks, in marked contrast to the other neighborhood children and to the adults, who wear only sandals when not barefoot. Sra. Lépez tries to dress like the modern Mexican

career woman she feels herself to be. She wears a reboizo only to church and occasionally wears pants-suits.

Actually, much of the Lopez family's financial success is due to the active partnership of Sra. Lopez. She is responsible for the retail end of the business, freeing her husband to concentrate on the wholesale aspects. She manages the store, trains the help, and has a good "feel" for what will sell. It is she, usually, who conducts the day-to-day business dealings with the potters. She places an order weekly with most of the potters with whom the firm does business. This order will specify the type of wares wanted, the size and finish, as well as the number, which usually amounts to a kilnload. The price is agreed upon at the same time, often accompanied by an advance payment. This practice has apparently become quite common in pottery-making centers. Diaz

(1966:180) mentions it as does Uovelo (1976:126). Wovelo finds that the pottery traders in Capula, Michoacan, not only give the potters advance payments and loans but also supply them with glaze, paint, and fuel. The potters are then obligated to sell to the same trader all of the time, as their debts exceed the week's production. In Acatlan, at least, the traders do not supply materials to the potters; nevertheless, an advance is usual not only to seal the bargain, but because the potter, having spent all of his earnings from the week before, has been reduced 6h

to asking for one. He often must ask for another before the week is

out, as Sra. L6pez is not overgenerous with her advanced payments.

"We have to beg for every centavo," say the potters, "and then she is

always dropping around to check up." In justice to the Lopez' , some

of their potters are improvident alcoholics who drink until they are

out of money and work at their trade only enough to get by.

Similar complaints are;made about the other traders, but most of

the potters appreciate the virtues of this relatively new system of

marketing. Older potters point out that they are saved the trouble

of carrying all of their wares to the market, "wasting" the entire day

attempting to sell them, and carrying home again the wares that went

unsold. Potters also feel that they now enjoy a little more security

and that much of the guesswork has been removed from their trade.

"We know what things to make and how much money we will get for them,

so we know how much money we can spend." In times of personal or

family financial crisis, potters know that they can borrow enough from their trader to see them through the difficulty. Bonds of compadrazgo,

as well as of debt, usually tie a potter to a particular trader, further

cementing the relationship. Lopez cannot remember the number of times that he and his wife have been called upon to perform this role. They have been godparents of baptism, graduation, quinceahos, and marriage

and are bound in one way or another, beyond merely a business rela­ tionship, to most of the potters whose work they offer for sale.

With his week's income ensured by the trader's weekly order, the prudent potter attempts to minimize the risk of not being able to ful­

fill his obligation. He overproduces the order by one or two examples 65

of each of the items the trader has ordered. If all survive the manu­

facturing and firing processes, the potter gradually builds up a back­

log of extra wares which he can sell to the occasional itinerant trader

for an unexpected windfall.

The Potters

When Foster visited Acatlan in the spring of 1959, he found that

pottery was being made by about 200 individuals who were members of

about 80 families (Foster 1960:207). This figure does not differ sig­

nificantly from those given l8 years later either by Adolfo Lopez,

or by Mario Martinez, a potter. These figures, however, include only

those households that are engaged in the production of pottery as a

fulltime occupation. There are an unknown number of people, often

women whose husbands are employed at other occupations or widows, who

engage in pottery-making on a part-time basis. Most of the production

of these latter, sometimes referred to rather scornfully as "amateurs"

or "doodlers" by the fulltime practitioners, is that of small domestic

wares for the Sunday market or of some of the tourist wares (Fig. 26).

Even full-time practitioners in Acatlan barely get by economically

and still feel themselves, as Heron Martinez told Foster in 1959, "the

lowest people in the social structure of the town" (Foster 1965:^6).

After a brief review of the literature, Foster concluded that

more intensive fieldwork will indicate that the position of potters in peasant society generally is not high, and that given reasonable alternatives, a majority of potters will try to abandon the profession. The explanation for low status probably is found in the combination of average low income and the feeling that the work is dirty (1965:^7).

Foster limited his investigation to peasant societies due to the

fact that in primitive societies one does not usually find craft a

2.,

»

I

.'D'cc. ' #:

' ' ( / ' r r ' '.. H ’v:

Figure 26. Attempting to sell a few wares at the Sunday market. 67

specialists such as potters. A survey of complex societies, such as

our own, would have produced similar findings. It is almost a cultural

universal that potters throughout history have been poor, anonymous,

and have enjoyed little status. There are exceptions, as Charleston

(1968:9 ) explains:

The potter has usually been a humble craftsman, providing the world with its utilitarian wares, and only occasionally rising to a higher plane of artistic pretension in the execution of some special commission, as when the 17th century English country potter made a slipware dish to commemorate a wedding or a birth. Such pieces survive when the plainer products which were the staple of his trade have long since been broken and discarded. Sometimes, however, the potter has aspired to the status of an artist.

It is this latter phenomenon that is responsible for the exceptions,

There are and have been among potters, artists who, since Andokides and

Euphronius, have lost their anonymity, becoming rich and famous. Few, however, can be said to have gained much status until the 20th century.

Two examples are Bernard Leach, an Englishman, and the late Shoji Hamada, a Japanese, close friends and working colleagues. Leach has received such honors as an honorary doctorate from the University of South Wales in 1961 and in 1966 the Order of the Sacred Treasure 2nd Class in Tokyo, the highest Japanese honor ever given to a British commoner (Hodin I967:

1 5). Until his death in January, 1978, Hamada was one of the most cele­ brated of Japanese contemporary artists in any medium and, according to Munsterberg (1964:2^7),

In 1955 the Japanese government, by designating him an Intangible Cultural Treasure of the nation, bestowed on him the highest honor it can give to an artist working in a traditional craft. 68

Although partially for the sake of tourism, as Graeburn (1970:

203) suggests, Mexico is beginning to recognize the artists among its potters. None has yet achieved the stature of a Leach or Hamada, al­ though many have gained international recognition, and prices for their work reflect this fame. Some of these potters have been previously mentioned; others are Aurelio Flores of Izucar de Matamores, Puebla; both Armando and Simeon Galvan, brothers of Tonala, Jalisco; and Jorge

Wilmot of Tonala. The last named, one of Mexico's most copied potters, is responsible for revolutionizing ceramic techniques in Tonala.

Gutierrez y Gutierrez (1970-71:36) explain that Wilmot

in the past few years has developed a ceramic fired at high temperatures according to modern Japanese techniques but retaining the exquisite traditional decorative style of flowers, animals, and the sun.

Possibly not Wilmot's equal in terms of artistic merit but cer­ tainly as influential is Acatlan's "favorite son" Heron Martinez

Mendoza, also one of Mexico's major contemporary artists. His work has been one of the major forces in effecting recent changes in the cera­ mics of Acatlan. He has, according to Espejel (1972:36),

given new dimension to the craftsmanship of that village. Heron came from a family of traditional potters. He began to work with traditional forms : the olla and the cantaro, but later began to conceive new forms derived from the candlesticks traditionally used for November's festival of the Day of the Dead. A great variety of forms is owed to his imagination such as the hanging candelabra, the musical animals, and the other pieces that have little by little been increased in size, and that now characterize Acatlan [my translation].

Since Foster's visit in 1959, Heron's work has grown progressively larger, freer, more ornate, and more carefully executed. As he has be­ come more inventive, his pieces have become less repetitive and more 69

unique. These have commanded higher and higher prices and, as he grew more and more successful, he became liberated from the need to mass produce 60 to 80 nearly identical objects each week for 25 to 50 pesos apiece. He exhibited at a major show at the Museo National de Artes e Industrias Populares in 1968 and has been represented by a Mexico

City gallery since then. In 1975, at an exhibition of ceramics from the entire country selected by the Board of Tourism, one of his candelabra was offered for sale for $10,000 pesos— at that time worth $800 dollars in US currency.

As he has grown increasingly wealthy, he has spent his money ac­ quiring more land and making improvements to his house, including a sidewalk, window glass and grilles, indoor plumbing, and tiled floors.

Other material goods include furniture, a telephone, television, stereo, and two automobiles. His children are attending, or have attended, col­ lege. One son is attending art school, but none has, as yet, followed

Heron into his trade.

This affluent style of life on Heron's part has not passed un­ noticed. Foster (1964:^3) recounts several explanations used by vil­ lagers of Tzintzuntzan to explain the acquisition of wealth by one of their number. Of these, the "tapping of outside sources of wealth by supernatural or lucky means," is closest to the one used by Acatecans to account for Heron's success. Luck, rather than supernatural forces, is to blame; interestingly, the luck involved seems to have been Foster's

1959 visit to Acatlan and his selection of Heron as informant. The other potters feel that it was the ensuing publicity that was res­ ponsible for Heron's good fortune. "Why him?" they ask, "it could TO

have been any one of us." Their envy of his success has provided the impetus for ceramic experiments in their spare time as they attempt to perfect new forms and designs. Some of these prove to be successful enough to become part of Acatlan's new tradition. CHAPTER IV

MARIO I4ARTÎNEZ ESPINOSA

The Martinez Family

Mario Martinez Espinosa is a more typical potter than Her6n.

Mario is, in fact, typical of not only the majority of Acatecan pot­ ters but of potters in general. He is poor, yet not as poor as many in

Acatlan. He is unknown to the outside world, yet he enjoys a great deal of prestige among his peers for his excellent craftsmanship. He is addressed as "maestro" by those among them who are not his intimate friends. Mario is 4l; Teresa, his wife of 22 years, is 38. They live with eight of their nine surviving children across the street from

Heron Martinez, a distant relative. Teresa is a good wife and an ex­ cellent mother; Mario is an excellent husband and a warm and affec­ tionate father. They are a hardworking, close knit family and, even among the children, quarrelling is kept to a minimum. Both verbal and physical affection are frequently exhibited between all members of the family. Laughter and joking are common, but the jokes are never at the expense of others. Even at the height of the rainy season when no pottery has been fired for 3 weeks or a month and the family has gone deeply in debt simply for food, morale does not seem to suffer.

In a discussion of the dynamics of poverty stricken Mexican families.

La Farge (l956:ix) finds an almost diametrically opposed situation, as

among the striking things about these families are their general malaise, the rarity among them of happiness or contentment, the rarity of affection. Demonstrative

71 72

affection or, except during a relatively brief courting and initial mating period, what we usually mean by "love" are rare among the poorer, simpler peoples of the world. Above all, where hunger and discomfort rule, there is little spare energy for the gentler, warmer, less utili­ tarian emotions and little chance for active happiness.

The Martinez family and their life together better illustrate

Foster's thought (1967b:6l);

that in pottery-making families domestic relations run rather smoothly. Potting, more than any other occupation, requires the intimate, smoothly integrated, continuing cooperation of husband and wife, and of the older children as well, if the family's economic needs are to be met. Potter spouses spend much more time in each other's company than do those in farming and fishing families, and con­ tinuing friction would seriously jeopardize the productive process. Moreover, the quiet, sedentary nature of much of the work encourages talk and an interchange of ideas and feelings not possible in the other occupations. If pottery-making does, in fact, encourage domestic bliss, it is an important compensation for the miserably low incomes that characterize most of these families.

Whether or not Foster is correct in assigning the responsibility for it to pottery-making, Mario and Teresa, if not "blissful," are content with each other and their family. They are not, however, content with their lot in life, their "destiny" which is pottery- making, and poverty. Their income is certainly "miserably low."

Even in Acatlan, Mario finds it difficult to support ten people on the equivalent of $40 to $50 a week in American money. The family lives from day to day, almost from hour to hour, with any unexpected expense, such as illness or accident, wreaking financial havoc. Teresa then uses every avenue available to her, straining her account at the tienda as well as the bonds of friendship, kinship, and compadrazgo to their limits. At times, she has had to sell some precious family possession or use it as security for a loan she has no hope of being 73

able to repay. Some of these crises are products of status maintenance—

the purchase of a wedding or graduation present for a relative or neighbor or flowers for a funeral. Failure to do so would result more

in loss of face than in actual social ostracism. People would smile knowingly and clap their right hand to their left elbow in the gesture called "coda" or "stingy." Continued failure to participate in these customary exchange gestures would seriously damage Mario's reputation in the community. Almost all of their friends and relatives are en­ gaged in the same economic struggle, but everyone tries to "do what is proper."

From time to time, Salvador or Juan will earn a few extra pesos working for Sr. Lopez, or Mario will manage to sell a few extra wares to an itinerant trader, but the unexpected windfall seldom coincides with times of family financial crisis. These extra sums are not often used to repay debts but are channelled instead into new clothes or shoes for whichever family members are the most threadbare. These are usually the oldest children; younger children, as in large families all over the world, having to suffer the indignity of hand-me-downs.

Keeping nine growing children in clothing, even with hand-me- downs, is a continuing struggle. Expensive, special purpose clothing needed for baptisms, first communions, and graduations is not a problem; this is provided by the appropriate godparents. Providing the required school uniforms is more of a strain. These are passed around within the family from sister to sister and from cousin to cousin until they fall apart. The cost of these uniforms, as well as of books and school supplies, has provided the family with enough of a financial problem 74

that they have kept the children at home until they are 7 or 8 years old before starting at school. Once in school, they are given every encouragement to do well. Both Mario and Teresa graduated from primeria, the equivalent of the U.S. six-year elementary school. Until recently, this was all the schooling that Mexican children were required to com­ plete; now secundaria, junior high school, has been made mandatory.

Both parents hope that their children will go further in school than they did and perhaps be able to escape the vicious circle of poverty.

Mario's father was a potter, as was his grandfather, and "on back for maybe a thousand years." Yet, of a family of five sons and seven daughters, only Mario and one brother have followed the family trade, and none of his sisters has married a potter. Teresa did not come of a pottery-making family. Her grandfather was a farmer until his death and her grandmother, with the help of two of her sons, still farms the family land. After her husband died, Teresa's mother sup­ ported her family with a food stand in the market. One of Teresa's sisters followed their mother into this trade and owns one of the restaurants on the highway that also sells pottery, some of it Mario's.

Teresa's family helps in a number of other ways— her grandmother with fresh fruit and vegetables from the farm, her mother and sister with leftover food from their restaurants, her aunt, a physician, with medi­ cal attention and drugs. In return, Mario provides them with some of their pottery needs, particularly with some of the larger items, such as barriles.

Yet, as poverty stricken as the Martinez family is, there are others even poorer, several of whom look to Mario and Teresa for help. 75

Mario, for example, supplies prepared clay body and tinta to two or

three old women, potters' widows. Mario charges them only 2 or 3 pesos

for enough material to supply them for a week or more because "they

would not be happy if they didn't pay, they would feel they were

robbing me of my livelihood and they wouldn't come back, then I would

be robbing them of theirs." These old women are among the part-time

potters who produce some of the smaller domestic wares such as cups,

plates, and molcajetes, as well as a few of the smaller tourist wares.

Frequently, Mario will fire some of their wares along with his own—

they take up no more room in the kiln, as most are small enough to

fit inside objects of the size he usually produces.

Typically, in Acatlan as elsewhere, the nuclear family constitutes

a pottery-making work group. Teresa knew nothing about the craft until

she married Mario and, learning from him, has become his skilled partner.

Oscar, their oldest son, wanted no part of this work. He found pottery- making to be "dirty and boring," further stating "besides it doesn't pay." In the spring of 1975, he took the first step toward realizing his ambition of becoming a physician when he left home to live with his mother's aunt. Dr. Altagracia De La Paz. He works after school in her pharmacy trying to earn enough money needed for his tuition both to the University of Puebla and to the medical school. Both Oscar and his brother, Salvador, l8, are still in preparatoria, the Mexican equiva­ lent of the U.S.. high school. Both expect to graduate in June, 1979.

Salvador and Juan, 15, also have higher ambitions than pottery-making;

Salvador wants to become a teacher, Juan an engineer. Both, however, work with their parents after school, on Saturdays, and during summer T6 vacations from school and are already extremely competent potters. The next four children are girls; Maria Luisa, 12; Teresa, 10; Alexandra,

8; and Veronica, 7. They help their mother with the cooking and cleaning, run errands, and take care of the youngest children, Martin, almost 4, and Maria Cecilia, less than a year old.

The Household

The family lives in a one-room adobe house formerly used by them only as a workshop and storage area— a fairly recent living arrangement.

They formerly lived next door in a two-room house separated from the workshop by a narrow passage from the street to the patio. Financial reverses forced them to first rent one of the rooms and finally in 1976 to sell the house and move completely into the workshop. The interior of this structure, roughly 5 x 7 meters, is lit by a single 40-watt light bulb that hangs from the middle of the ceiling. A door open to the patio admits the only daylight now, as the single window has been boarded up for privacy.

All family indoor activity, sleeping, cooking and eating, as well as pottery-making, is confined to this relatively constricted area.

Much of the preparation of the raw materials takes place here and, during the rainy season, storage of the greenware as well. There is little in the way of household furnishings to interfere. The largest item is the parents' double bed of metal painted to resemble wood. The

"bookcase headboard" holds medicines and lotions, a few schoolbooks, and a picture of the Madonna and Child. The footboard is also a storage area and under the hinged top are kept precious family photographs and documents. In one corner hangs a wooden cradle used by one infant until 77

displaced by the next. The other children sleep on the earthen floor on petates; these are rolled up and stored in a corner during the day­ time. The switch to the overhead light with the only electrical outlet in the house is to the right of the door to the patio. Under this stands a small table, once the stand of a treadle sewing machine. This serves sometimes as an ironing board, sometimes as a desk, but is for most of the time a radio table.

The other table, made of wood, is used for meals by the parents and the two oldest children present at the time. Only four can eat at once sitting on the small handmade wooden chairs bought from a carpen­ ter at the market. The other children are faced with the choice of waiting for a chair or sitting on the floor. Usually too hungry to wait, they opt for the latter. Cooking is done sometimes inside on a two-burner kerosene stove that rests on cement blocks (Fig. 27), some­ times outside. Outside cooking is done over an open fire with an olla or comal resting on three stones over a small fire or on an anafre, or brasero. The former is a purchased metal charcoal burner, the latter a ceramic made by Mario. The choice of cooking methods depends, to a large degree, more on what kind of fuel is available at the moment than on what is being cooked. Other kitchen paraphenalia include the ubiquitous mano and metate; two aluminum saucepans; a few blue and white enameled metal cups, bowls, and spoons; and some assorted drinking glasses. The metate leans on the wall near the stove with the mano resting on it; the other items are stored in a wooden box that is hung on the wall as a shelf. Other wooden boxes are hung both on the wall behind the bed and near the light switch next to the door. The former Figure 27. Preparing dinner. T9

holds school books and papers, the latter a screwdriver and other house­ hold tools, miscellaneous parts, and the iron and radio when not in use.

As these latter are the family's only electric appliances, it is con­ venient to store them near to the outlet, although of course only one can be used at a time.

Another shelf hangs over the eating table. This one is carpenter made and serves as a family altar or shrine. On it are votive candles, bits of last year's palm, often a few flowers, and pictures of San

Rafael, the barrio saint. Saint Francis of Assisi, and the Virgin of

Guadalupe. Other wall decoration includes maps and pictures made by the children in school, some American baseball cards in a plastic cover, a three-year-old calendar kept for its picture, and a small mirror with a few picture postcards and snapshots thrust into the frame.

A makeshift closet takes up one corner of the room with a few

"good" clothes hung on hangers from a line that is stretched diagonally from wall to wall for a distance of about 2 meters. The rest of the clothes are stored in boxes under and behind the bed and must be ironed before wearing.

Outside of the iron and the radio, the family's most expensive possessions are a bicycle and a Remington portable typewriter. They had owned a burro, almost a necessity for a potter, but he died at the age of 15 in the spring of 1977, and the family cannot afford to replace him; between $40 and $50 dollars in American money, the equivalent of a week's income, is the price of a burro.

Of necessity, due to the size of the house, much of the housekeeping takes place on the patio. Here, under the shade of several trees, are 80

a number of ceramic vessels made by Mario in various shapes reflecting their intended functions. These are filled with a hose from the faucet in the passage on the side of the house and are used for water storage, bathing, and dish and clothes washing. Other sanitary facilities are lacking, and the family uses any convenient area at the back of the lot near to the kiln to relieve themselves.

The Family as a Work Unit

Pottery-making in Acatlan is not a 9:00 to 5:00, Monday through

Friday occupation. Although there is a somewhat recurrent pattern from one week to the next, work schedules, if the term can be used, show a great deal of flexibility. A sample week in the Martinez household is fairly typical of many of the other potters' families.

A typical week begins with the unloading of the kiln early Sunday morning with everyone in the family old enough to do so helping to de­ liver the finished wares to the trader. Once payment for these has been received, the family goes its separate ways. Teresa goes to the

Sunday market with one of the older girls to help her carry the purchases home. The other older daughter remains at home with the younger children.

Mario and his older sons might go to a sporting event, such as a bull fight or basketball, football, or baseball game (Fig. 28). When he was younger, Mario was an excellent baseball player; now Salvador is the shortstop and Juan the batboy for the San Rafael team and Mario an active fanâtiCO. If the San Rafael team is playing at home, Teresa will fix a picnic lunch on her return from the market and take it out to the playing field along with her younger children. The family does not then re­ group, however; Salvador and Juan remain with their teammates and Mario 81

Figure 28. Mario, hatless, watching the hallgame. 82

stays to drink beer with his cronies. Teresa joins the other women and

children to sit and watch and from time to time serves one of her family

a taco or contributes a few pesos for refrescos or popsicles.

Sporting events are not the only recreational events that exhibit this separation by age and sex. The same phenomenon can be observed at most social events in Acatlan, such as christenings, birthday parties, quinceahos, weddings, or saints’ days. These are held, whenever pos­ sible, on Sunday afternoon or evening to ensure a larger male attendance, as the later in the week they are held, the fewer the number of men that will be able to attend. Men contribute little to these events, however; they are first to be served and then gather into little groups to talk and drink while the women and children eat.

Whether or not there is a sporting or social event to provide the excuse, Sunday, and often Monday as well, is seldom a working day for Mario and some of the other Acatecan potters of his acquaintance.

The time is instead devoted to socializing, errand running, and any repairs necessary to tools or equipment. Mario tries to arrange his time so that he can work uninterruptedly on pottery-making once he gets started. By this time, however, the family is usually out of money, and either Mario or Teresa must go down and strike a bargain with Sra. Lopez in order to receive an advance. Once this has been done,

Mario can plan his week. Usually, he will discover that some necessary component of the clay body is missing, and he or one of his sons must go to obtain it. Ideally, the materials will be obtained and prepared so that work can begin early in the morning on the following day. The ideal working day begins with plenty or prepared clay body; everything 83

that is needed can he found; Mario, Salvador, and Juan are all ready to work; and Teresa or an older daughter is at home to fetch and carry. In practice, this ideal is seldom achieved. One material or another is lacking, Mario is distracted from work, Salvador and Juan have to go to school, no one is at home to help out, a particular tool is lost or broken, or a needed molde loaned to a neighbor has not yet been re­ turned. Somehow a solution is found to the problem or a compromise is reached. When the inevitable can be postponed no longer, work is finally begun.

It takes Mario a great deal longer to get started when he is working alone. It is not only the greater length of time that it takes one per­ son to prepare the materials and to collect everything necessary, but the fact that he must also overcome his reluctance to get back to work.

With other people working, there is, at least, someone to talk to. Alone, he faces a long empty day of boredom. Boredom, a major irritation among production potters, is not one that is faced by those few potters who have achieved the status of artists. Her6n Martinez is an example.

Each of his pieces is different from the last, and Heron can find his work both interesting and creative. The luxury of creativity is one that is seldom shared by Mario and most of the other potters of Acatlan.

For this reason, Mario is pleased when he receives an order for macetas, braseros, or chimeneas. These wares are decorated with faces and he can let his imagination run wild. Usually, however, he must reproduce the same item over and over again, "like a machine." Boredom is a reason frequently cited by young men who do not want to follow the potter's trade of their fathers. 84

The problem of boredom has been somewhat relieved by modern com­ munications . For example, Richard Culbertson, a Frederick, Maryland, potter, watches television as he throws repetitive shapes upon the wheel.

Acatecan potters, instead, listen to the radio, as does Mario. A favorite station is turned to in the morning and left on, sometimes through great explosions of static, rather than smear clay on the dial and knobs to adjust it. Sports in season are a prime favorite, and baseball, foot­ ball, and basketball are followed. The continuing problems of Una Mujer se Llamada Cristina and other serial "soap operas" are found almost as interesting. Along with these are other programs devoted to news, news analysis, commentary, political debate, weather reports, and general information. It is probably the radio rather than the schools that should receive the credit for the fact that Acatecan potters, including Mario, are not only extremely well informed but speak a more standard Spanish than the average Acatecan non-potter who does not spend so much time listening to the radio. Potters no longer consider radios to be luxuries and many, including Mario, try to maintain a portable radio also, both to use on the occasions when the electricity is "de­ composed," as well as to take out to the mine.

Other welcome diversions include guests who drop by or Teresa's return from church, the market, or a social affair with the latest gos­ sip. Children on their return from school will report in some detail on "what I learned in school today" before starting in on their homework or doing their chores. Neither the radio or conversations with guests or family members is allowed to interupt the manufacturing process once it is finally started; rather any diversion makes the time seem shorter. 85

Since working has been put off until it can be deferred no longer for

fear of actually starving, only some major event is now permitted to

interfere— the funeral of some close relative, compadre, or friend is

one example. Mario worked through his nephew's wedding and the fiesta

following it, as well as Oscar and Salvador's graduation from secundaria,

or junior high school. He did, however, take an entire Saturday after­

noon when Juan celebrated his first communion. Usually, Teresa, with

all of her preschool aged children in tow, attends weekday social af­

fairs without Mario and reports to him everything that took place.

Working days begin with someone, usually Maria Luisa or another of the older daughters, rolling up the sleeping petates and storing them

in a corner. Each member of the family who is going to work that day then lays out an old petate and on it assembles those tools, materials,

and pieces of equipment that he will need (Fig. 29). Included will be those molds that he will be using in his first hour or two of work.

Once someone is settled down and working, it is only with great re­ luctance that he gets up for any purpose other than to eat or to relieve himself. Ideally, there is a child to carry work and molds to and from the drying yard, refill the water can, find a lost or forgotten tool, and bring drinks of water. With his sons working beside him and his wife and younger children around to help, working days are both easier and more interesting for Mario. Between conversation and pottery-making, the time goes quickly. 86

Figure 2 9 . A workspace. CHAPTER V

THE MATERIALS OF POTTERY-MAKING

The Clay Body

The most basic requirement of any pottery-making activity is a suitable clay or clay body. That these two terms are not synonymous is emphasized by Hamer (1975:30) who defines a body as

a clay for a special purpose. It is created by blending different clays or by adding to clays other minerals, such as feldspar and flint, in order to produce a desired workability or finished result. A body is the result of man's technology. A clay is the natural product, though possibly simply processed to make it homogenous.

Among modern Western potters, there are probably more formulae for clay bodies than there are potters, as each potter will use a dif­ ferent body for different purposes, such as throwing, casting, or hand- building. Considerable space in Ceramics Monthly is devoted to discus­ sion of various body formulae, along with their advantages and disadvan­ tages. This interest was apparently not the case in pre-Columbian Meso- american ceramics according to William 0. Payne (l9TO;5). His microscopic analysis of Valley of Oaxaca pottery samples dating as early as l400 B.C. and as late as 15OO A.D. indicated that "potters used their materials virtually as found." Additives appear only after these natural deposits have been depleted, and potters were forced into an attempt to duplicate the natural bodies that they were accustomed to using. Payne finds this the case at the end of the Sung dynasty in China and

generally similar changes may be observed in the Southwest of the U.S. and in parts of Mexico just before and since the

87 88

Conquest. With the diminution of natural deposits, the potters were forced to duplicate the qualities of the originals by using additives, such as river sand or crushed potsherds.

Unlike either pre-Columbian Oaxacan potters who used an unaltered natural clay or modern Western potters with their individual formulae,

Acatecan potters share a common fabric. The paste formula in common use among them differs little from potter to potter and is identical, according to Mario Martinez, to that of a surface collection of Late

Post-classic sherds made on the Loma Flor (Fig. 3), a hill southwest of town in August 197^- Three ingredients, plus water, make up this body; tierra colorada, 50 percent; arena, 25 percent; and barro negro,

25 percent. (For an analysis of these materials, as well as tinta, the material used as a paint, see the Appendix.)

There have "always" been potters in Acatlan because "everything was right for us." Among factors cited by Acatecan potters as contri­ buting to Acatlan's fame as a ceramics center were both its location on heavily traveled main roads and its popular weekly market. The once abundant supplies of fuel and suitable clays were of equal importance.

Now, increased population pressures, along with an increase in land fenced and cleared for farming, has resulted in longer trips into the mountains and desert outside of town for materials, as well as a shor­ tage of fuel for firing. Barro negro is one example; it is now no longer available for the taking, but must be purchased from the owner of the land on which it is found (Figs. 30, 31). Although the owner is a pot­ ter himself and lives and works around the corner from the Martinez family, his farm is southeast of town at Km. 255 on the Pan American

Highway (Fig. 3). The barro negro must be brought by truck from this 89

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■ ■**».--:■. A4fcvK..««,4U*£K.JbJW*..ui.';ifcfl»*iiii>.J«'. il'■

Figure 30. Source of barro negro. SI

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Figure 31. Source of barro negro. 91

location. Half a truckload costs 90 pesos, a supply sufficient for

3 or U weeks. After it is delivered, it is broken up into small pieces with a flail, dried in the sun, and stored in large ollas under plastic to keep it dry until needed.

Barro negro is the only material that is stockpiled since half a truckload of it must be purchased at one time. Because storage space for other materials is lacking, trips to obtain them become almost a daily occurrence. Fortunately, both of the other materials used in the clay body are closely located and easily obtained. Arena is dug from a mina in the first range of hills west of town (Fig. 3). Each family uses its own mina until the supply is exhausted or until the tunnel is too deep to work safely. No one does any timbering of the tunnels, and the hills are pockmarked with abandoned minas, none more than 2 or 3 meters deep (Fig. 32). Arena, a soft grayish-white material, is easily picked loose prior to being loaded into two 20-liter oil cans with a shovel. These cans are tied to either side of the burro's wooden saddle (Fig. 33); an additional amount can be carried on top of the saddle in a canvas bag. The pick and shovel are tied on last or are left in the mina to await a second trip.

Tierra colorada, used not only for half of the clay body but for a mold release is also, fortunately, the easiest of the materials to obtain. It is easily dug from one of a number of pits behind the Panteon less than a kilometer south of the Martinez household (Fig. 3). It is seldom compacted enough to require picking and can be shoveled directly into the oil cans (Fig. 34). 7 .

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4

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Figure 32. Mining arena. a

Figure 33. Loading the burro with arena. 94

m t

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I

Figure 34. A neighbor mining tierra Colorado, 95

Water is essential to every stage of pottery-making, including

firing. In the archeological past, potters have had to locate near

streams or other reliable water sources. Present-day Acatecan potters

are fortunate to have running water brought at least to their patios by

the Rio Balsas Agua Potable project. In common with other Acatecans,

the Martinez family keeps three or four barriles filled with water from

the hose kept always attached to the faucet. The water is used from

these barriles for everything: drinking, cooking, washing-up, laundry,

and the baby-bottle, as well as pottery-making. On the occasions when

the city water has been off for some time and the stored water is used

up, someone, usually Juan, must take the burro for more. It takes three

or four trips to the well behind the Panteon with the burro loaded with

four cantaros to fill the barriles. This chore must be repeated two or

three times a day for as long as the water supply is turned off. During

these periods, water is used only for essentials; cooking and pottery take priority over dishwashing and laundry. The necessity for this is viewed with disgust but not surprise, as problems with the water and

electricity are such common occurrences.

When all of the materials have been obtained, initial preparation begins. There is no set location for this procedure; sometimes it is done inside the house, at other times in the yard or even in the street.

Many potters find it more efficient to prepare both tierra colorada and arena at the mines, as both materials must be reduced to a fine powder and sieved before they are used. An old petate or piece of canvas is spread out on the floor or ground and the material is emptied out on it.

It is then beaten into a fine powder by flailing it with a heavy stick. 96

Often, two of Mario's sons will take part in this chore, rhythmically- beating in turn until the job is done (Fig. 35). Tierra colorada is more quickly pulverized than arena and reduces to a finer powder. Any foreign matter or large particles are separated by sifting the material through window screening onto a sheet of canvas or plastic (Fig. 36).

The fine material is then easily poured into one of the 20-liter cans or some other container until time to mix the clay body.

The Acatecan formula as stated by Mario consists of 50 kilograms tierra colorada, 25 kilograms of arena, 25 kilograms of barro negro, and 20 liters of water. Since no one weighs or measures any of the in­ gredients prior to mixing the clay body, this represents the ideal. An old petate is laid out on the floor and the pulverized tierra colorada and arena are emptied out onto it, with about twice the amount of tierra colorada used as arena (Fig. 37). These two materials are mixed together thoroughly by hand. If the color is not judged to be exactly right by

Mario, the blend is corrected by adding more of one or the other ingre­ dient. The dry mix is then heaped into a mound and a large depression is made in the center for the barro negro. This rather intractable material is also prepared by crushing with a flail but it is not sieved until after it has been mixed with water. It is added, little by little, to the water in an urna or 20-liter oil can and mixed into a thick soup.

Mario himself does this by hand, pinching out any lumps, with both arms immersed up to the elbows. One of his sons or his wife helps by pouring in more water, or barro negro, as called for.

The final steps in the preparation of the clay fabric are per­ formed when the "soup" is ready. The screen is placed on the dry mix A

Figure 35- Flailing arena. Figure 36. Sifting arena. 99

. T..

Figure 37. Mixing the dry ingredients, 100

and the barro negro is poured through a little at a time into the dry material. Everyone present then works rapidly to mix the two together before the liquid material has a chance to run off onto the floor. This process is repeated several times until all of the wet mixture has been added to the dry. On occasion, too much has been added, making for a very gummy body; more arena is mixed in to correct this. Anything that will not go through the screen is discarded, and the screen is put out to dry in the sun. When all of the clay material has been mixed together, it is taken in small amounts of about 5 kilos at a time, wedged, and then stacked on a sheet of plastic. When all of the clay body has been wedged, usually into about 25 loaf-shaped pieces, the pieces are sprinkled with water and covered with another sheet of plastic until needed. They are taken one at a time as needed and wedged again just before use.

No matter what clay or clay body is being used, all potters wedge their clay for a number of reasons. Lawrence (1972:108) explains that wedging serves to randomize the arrangement of particles and to distri­ bute the moisture more uniformly throughout the mass. Air bubbles and excess water are removed at the same time. Another important point em­ phasized by Nelson (1971:143) is the considerable effect that wedging has in increasing the plasticity of the body, particularly beneficial in a coarse clay due to the realigning of the particles.

For several reasons, wedging clay seems to be a universal practice among potters, although methods may differ from culture to culture. Most

Western potters stand to do this work at a wedging board or table. The lump of clay is cut with a wire; the two halves are then reversed and slapped together with great force. This cycle is repeated two to three 101

dozen times until all of the air bubbles are gone and the ball of clay

is completely homogenous. Mario and his sons use a method of wedging called the Oriental, or Japanese method. This is described by Bernard

Leach (1973:51):

The Japanese knead their clay by a two-handed rotary move­ ment with the weight of the shoulders coming down rhythmically on the right wrist. Fifteen to thirty pounds of clay are handled at a time; the clay is turned slowly clock-wise mainly by the left hand, the right hand taking a fresh hold after each pressure and release. The effect is to move the clay on the outside towards the centre of the mass whence it works out slowly to the circumference again.

Leach (1973:52) pictures this process being done at a table. Mario and his sons, in common with other Acatecan potters, kneel on the floor, keeping their work on the petate.

Although methods of wedging differ, potters seem to be in universal agreement that it is a necessary step in the preparation of a clay or clay body. This is not the case when it comes to aging the clay. In

Acatlan, pottery-making often comes to a stop for lack of materials, and the time must be taken to prepare more. Indeed, before this can be done, someone usually must take the burro and go for more arena or tierra color­ ada. Mario seldom does this now that his sons are old enough for the task, preferring to stay working and using up the previous batch of paste. This is in sharp contrast to the practice of many other traditions wherein the clay is felt to improve with storage. Even at Coyotepec,

Oaxaca, Van de Velde and Van de Velde (1939:29) report that the clay after beating

is then put in the pila (a small cemented tank), covered with water, and left to stand until saturated,a period of twenty- four hours. 102

Among modern potters, there is much folklore and little under­

standing regarding aging. Rhodes (1973:71) refutes one of the most

common myths :

It is said that Chinese potters put down clay for their grandchildren and use that which was prepared by their grandfathers. But in all probability even the Chinese are not so well organized as that, and their pottery shops are probably chronically short of aged clay, just as ours are.

Bernard Leach, who worked in Japan for many years and is regarded as a primary authority by modern potters, insists

clay is improved by long storage; it gains in plasticity, its decomposition continues, it changes colour, and may even begin to stink. I have been told of old potters who speak of such matured, or soured, clay with the quiet impressiveness of epicures discussing vintage wine (1973:48).

Hamer (1975:2) differentiates between aging and souring. Aging;- he states, is physical action involving

the slow penetration of water between clay particles giving a net result of more particles of smaller size. This means a higher plasticity.... Souring is slightly different: it involves organic action. Bacteria in the clay break down the organic matter and multiply. In so doing they create a colloidal gel through the water which is between the clay particles. This gel has the property of plasticity which adds to that of the clay.

Potters have known empirically for thousands of years what aging does to clay. Science has put this knowledge on a firmer basis, as

Michaels (1958:29) states.

Recent experimental evidence suggests rather convincingly that aqueous suspensions of monovalent cation forms (lithium or sodium) of Kaolinite, when allowed to age for extended periods of time, gradually convert to aluminum forms of the mineral. This apparently results from a gradual sloughing off of aluminum (as aluminum hydroxide) from the crystal edges, which then replaces the monovalent ions on the crystal faces. The conversion process, as might be expected appears to result in flocculation of the clay. In all 103

probability, the characteristic stiffening of clay pastes on aging under moist conditions, or on mechanic blending, is due, at least in part, to this conversion process.

Mexican potters, in general, do not seem to age their clay. Foster

does not mention the practice (1948, 1955, 19^0) nor do Espejel (1972,

1975) or Hopkins (1974). Diaz (1966:143) finds in Tonala, Jalisco, that

the regular pattern is for the clay to be made into paste in the morning, often before early morning Mass, and then it is allowed to "rest" until after breakfast when the next step in the process is begun.

Van de Velde and Van de Velde (1939:30) find the potters of

Coyotepec well aware of the practice of aging, sometimes taking the trouble to store and "ripen" some clay when contemplating the manu­

facture of some especially fine pieces. This assertion is open to doubt : Foster does not mention aging in his discussion of Coyotepec and Shepard (1968:52)feels that in the few ethnographic cases reported of prewheel potters storing clay that the habit was learned from

Europeans.

Mario, in common with the rest of Acatecan potters, does not pre­ pare his clay fabric until needed. If there is no place to store even a small supply of raw materials in the small houses in which most of them live, there is certainly no room for several months' supply of aging clay. The clay body does not seem to suffer from lack of aging;

Possibly the large percentage of barro negro in the body formula is the reason. Barro negro is a montmorillonitic clay. These are very plastic, have a high shrinkage rate, and tend to crack in drying. Mont- morillonites are very gummy and must be added to water, rather than the reverse. Western potters use amounts as low as 1 to 3 percent added to their clay bodies when improved plasticity is needed. i o 4

In a discussion of the theory of aging, Mario stated that the clay in other parts of the world was not as good as that in Acatlsn and that anything people could do to make it better would, of course, be tried. He also felt that people will continue doing things the way they have always done them, even if there no longer exists any good reason for doing so.

Paints

Acrylic paints used by some Acatecans are sold in a number of places in the town. They are available, as are brushes, in the paint store on Miguel Hidalgo a block east of the Plaza des Armas, as well as at the Sunday market. Many of the people who use acrylics buy them at one of the variety stores or the closest tienda where they can charge them. Sold in bottles, rather than tubes, 20 milliliters cost

3 pesos.

Both red-ware and black-ware produced for the tourist market owe their highly polished finish to a substance called by the potters tinta

(see Appendix). Tinta cannot be called a slip, as it contains very little clay; it is closer in form to the coloring oxides used by Western pot­ ters. It is prepared by soaking iron-bearing rocks in water until a thick paint results. This is started about an hour before it is actually needed. When first made, this paint is used for the second, or final, coat. It then "passes" to being "old" and is used for the initial or first coat of the next lot of wares before being discarded.

The tinta is obtained from a small mina in the mountains 5 kilo­ meters southwest of town (Figs. 3, 38). It is a difficult trip with the burro, up and down hill and along a narrow track close to a mountain 105

Figure 38. Mining tinta with a pica. io 6

stream. The roundtrip, including mining and loading the burro, takes about 4 hours. The mina is about 5 meters below the crest of a steep hill and there iS: only a narrow ledge from which to work. An inside sheltered source is sought as rain washes all the "good color" from the stones rendering them useless. The burro is tethered in a safe place to browse until enough material is picked loose and is then led carefully down the steep slope and loaded for the difficult trip home.

Fortunately, enough tinta is obtained in one trip to last almost a year. The burro can carry somewhat more than 100 kilograms and only

2 kilograms or so are used in preparing a week's supply. Despite the arduous and somewhat dangerous trip, the entire family goes along.

They make a holiday out of the occasion, taking a picnic lunch, picking desert fruits such as pitahaya along the way, splashing in pools of water if the stream is not dry, and generally enjoying the day.

Fuel

A problem Acatecans share with not only other Mexican potters but the rest of the world as well, is the increasing shortage of fuel. Older people say that 60 years ago forests grew to the very outskirts of the town and that they were filled with wild animals, such as bears, coyotes, wolves, wildcats, rabbits, and deer. The predators killed livestock, and the rabbits and deer ruined gardens and corn crops. Since the

Revolution, the Government has allowed these animals to be hunted and has granted permission to clear the forests for more farms and fenced fields.

As a consequence, there is little wood now for potters' kilns, though when it is found it is used. Currently, the most commonly used 107

fuel is cactus, but even this must be sought further and further from

town as competition increases for the scarce supply. Jiotilla (Escontria

chiltilla) and pitayaha (Cereus pachycereus) are the species most favored.

Two larger species known popularly as organo (Cereus marginatus and

Cereus gemmatus) are not suitable for the average potter's kiln. They

grow to a height of 8 to 10 meters, with branches a meter in diameter.

They are difficult to cut down and too large to fit into the kiln openings,

They are used, however, by the brickmakers to fire ladrillos.

Few potters take the time to hunt their fuel, yet the price, when one can find a vendor, has been climbing steadily. In 1974, the cost

for 4 cargitas, or burroloads, of cactus was 80 pesos (Fig. 39). By the following year, only 2 cargitas could be bought for that price, not quite enough to fire the kiln once. By 1977» the price for 2 somewhat smaller cargitas has jumped to 150 pesos, but this was after the peso had been devaluated. Fuel has to be brought increasingly far. In 1977» it was brought from Boqueron, 9 kilometers to the north. Boqueron is only about a 15-minute trip by car, but a loaded burro will take 2 hours or more. It is said that there is very little more cactus to be had in the vicinity of Boqueron and there is now talk of trucking it from Pet- lalcingo, 23 kilometers to the south on the Pan American Highway.

Potters have tried a number of substitutes: rubbish, sugar cane, and cornstalks among others. In 1975» potters discovered that the addition of a bag or two of cut-up tires added to 2 or 3 cargitas of cactus would suffice for a firing. Two bags of these cost then 10 pesos and the price, unlike many, has increased only slightly (12 pesos). lo 8

I

«

Figure 39- The fuel vendor. 109

There is competition even for tires, not only with other potters hut with sandal makers who use them for soles (Fig. 4o). There is fear that increasing scarcity will force up the price of these out of reach.

Tires are not a satisfactory fuel and cannot be used alone, as they burn too quickly and with too hot a flame. Even in combination with cactus, the results are uneven and fire clouding often occurs in an oxidizing atmosphere. No one likes the eye-stinging acrid smoke of the burning rubber (Fig. 4l), and Mario worries that with every potter burning tires, the air of Acatlan will equal that of Mexico City in pollut ion. 110

Figure 4o. Sandal soles in the Oaxaca market. Ill

t

u

Figure 4l. Dense black smoke from burning rubber. CHAPTER VI

THE IMPLEMENTS OF POTTERY-MAKING

Tools

In contrast to some handicrafts, potters as a class do not require

a great many tools. Many of these would he difficult to recognize as

such by an archeologist inasmuch as potters have a tendency to use any

object at hand, discarding it immediately after use. Many of these

tools are not only of a perishable nature, such as small sticks or

pieces of gourd, but have not been altered enough to be recognizable

as tools. Hopkins (197^:68) comments on the inventive nature of the

Mexican potter :

He picks the seemingly useless out of his surroundings and converts it to his special needs. This bent for in­ vention may show in the arrangements for firing, or in the little items used daily in the shaping and finishing of articles; stones for flattening the clay tortillas or slabs, bits of sheet metal for shaping and scraping, corn­ cobs for shaping and smoothing, rags or scraps of leather for wetting and smoothing, cactus thorns for striating or outlining, a horsehair or maguey fiber for deftly cutting a piece from its base after turning on the wheel, a crumpled nucleus or "soul" (alma) of newspaper around which to mold a rain spout, brushes of domestic animal hair for painting. But he is not above utilizing what mechanization has produced, so he smooths some pieces with a plastic sponge and substitutes nylon thread for the horsehair.

Of those tools listed by Hopkins, only the stones might survive to be discovered in an archeological context. While in the Southwest of the United States some pottery polishing stones have been recognized as such, the flattening stones mentioned by Hopkins would probably not

112 113

be. It is more likely due to the nature of pottery-making tools rather

than a lack of interest on the part of archeologists but little is

found in the literature.onthe subject. Exceptions are Quimby (19^9)

and Houston and Wainer (1971)• Usually, any discussion of pottery-making

tools is incidental; Shepard does not go into the matter, Richter

(l923:8k-86) only briefly.

In general, potters' tools, both in Acatlan and elsewhere, can be

divided into two major classes: those needed for winning and preparing

the clay body and those used during forming and finishing the wares. A

third class could be added— those tools used in decorating the wares.

Few tools are needed for obtaining the materials. A pica is used

to loosen the clays from the mine. This is more like an American crow­

bar than a pickaxe. It is a straight shaft of steel about 2 meters

long and is wedge-shaped at one end (Fig. 38). Mario has had his for

some 10 years and remembers that "it cost about 12 pesos." It is used like a wooden digging stick for which it is probably a modern substi­ tute. After the material has been loosened, it is transferred to 20- liter oil cans with an ordinary shovel. No pre-Columbian functional equivalents of this latter tool are known except among the Eskimo. Be­ fore oil cans were available, clay materials were carried in bags and baskets.

The dry materials of the clay body are prepared, either at the mina or at the potter's workshop, by beating with a palo or flail until pulverized. Those used by the Martinez family are of wood 70 centimeters to a meter in length and resemble a club (Fig. 35). Preferred ones are branches with natural knots at the ends. An old baseball bat is some­ times used for this purpose. The Van de Veldes (1939:22) picture a I l k

similar implement, although this has an iron blade attached to one end

for use in picking the clay from the ground.

A machete is the all-purpose cutting tool. It is used for

gathering cactus and other woods, as well as to cut it into proper

lengths for carrying and for burning. It is also used to cut up

rubber tires, the alternate fuel, and as a wirecutter.

Very few tools are used in the actual manufacturing process. Some

of these were pictured by Foster (1960;206); others have been added since.

Mario, for example, no longer uses the reed knife pictured. Instead, he uses a cuchillo, a knife made of half a hacksaw blade machine ground to a point by an automobile mechanic. It costs about 5 pesos to purchase a blade and to have it made into two cuchillos, but they are among the most used of Mario’s tools. They are needed not only in a number of operations during the forming of the object, but also in decorating and finishing. Some cutting and piercing is done with a short piece of stiff wire about 10 to 15 centimeters long. This wire is stuck into a lump of clay which serves both as a handle and as an aid in finding it when wanted. Although not mentioned by Foster, the wire is probably a func­ tional replacement for the cactus thorn listed as a tool by Hopkins

(1974:68).

Each potter also has a collection of bits and pieces of wood, gourd, tin, or sherd which he uses for thinning, smoothing, and shaping the work in progress. Elote is also used for these purposes, as well as for thinning and raising vessel walls. Elote are the rough corncobs pictured by Foster (i960: Fig. 6c). An object called by Foster elote liso, smooth corncob, pictured in his Figure 3a, is almost identical to some tools of Mario's. Mario says that these are palo de sauce or 115

willow wand. He cuts the willow growing hy the river and carves several

at a time. The four he is currently using were made 5 years ago, and

he expects them to last another year or two before wearing too thin in

the center to be usable. Used for shaping the rim of a vessel (Fig. 42),

they are 20 to 25 centimeters in length and 2 to 3 centimeters in diameter.

These are also sometimes used as a measuring tool, as is any convenient

stick or object that is the right length for the job at hand.

One of the most impermanent of the objects that must be considered

under the heading of tools is a simple lump of clay. This is formed into

a pestle shape as needed, used to tamp the paste until it conforms to

the mold and then returned to the common supply (Fig. 43). Houston

and Wainer (l9Tl) describe a similar device from Oaxaca. These, called

azotadores, are not only used in present day Oaxaca but have been found

in Late Classic and Post-Classic contexts (Houston and Wainer 1971:6).

The major difference between these and the ones in use in Acatlan are

that the Oaxacan versions have been fired and are a more permanent

article in the tool inventory.

Tools used to decorate the wares in their plastic state include

the cuchillo and the short straight lengths of wire already mentioned,

other pieces of wire bent into special shapes and used for stamps, pot­ tery stamps, sticks, reeds, broken combs, hairpins, or any other object

capable of leaving a mark on the clay while it is soft. Circles are

now stamped with the mouth of a small glass pill bottle instead of the

reeds used earlier, although a reed will sometimes be cut in half to

achieve a semicircular pattern. Brushes are seldom purchased but are made as needed with a few pig bristles lashed to a popsicle stick with

sewing thread. 116

V

Figure 42. Thinning a rim with the palo de sauce. HT

Figure 43. Using a lump of clay as a tool. 118

The only tools involved in finishing the wares are sandpaper and

the useful cuchillo. Rags both dry and wet are used at every stage. Wet

rags are used for the final forming of a lip, adding a little water to

a drying vessel being formed, and coating the wares with tinta. Dry

rags are used to blot up excess water in the bottom of an object, to

"erase" mistakes in plastic decoration, and to polish the finished wares

before they are fired.

Equipment

The equipment owned and used by Acatecan potters is extremely

simple and is largely homemade. Two of the items, in fact, are so

simple that they have long gone unrecognized in archeological contexts

and are just now beginning to be understood. The first of these, the

parador, was first described for Acatlan by Foster (1960:20%) who

defined it as

A flat-bottomed pottery saucer or casserole with flaring sides, averaging 1% cm. in diameter at the base, 42 cm. in diameter at the rim, and 10 cm. in height. The flat bottom of a used parador is much abraded from being rotated on the ground or on a reed mat. The parador is homologous to the Mama kabal.

Foster suggests that the use of these might date back to La Venta, basing this conclusion on artifacts found at that site that were almost

identical to the paradores in use in Acatlan. Mario's are almost iden­ tical to those pictured by Foster except that the edges of Mario's are

slightly more fluted to enable a better purchase (Fig. 44). They are used toturn the work while it is being made or decorated (Fig. 45).

Although it has been suggested that they are the precursors, or primitive early forms, of the potter's wheel, a better comparison would be to the banding wheels used by many Western potters for these same purposes. 119

Figure kk. Setting a ladrillo onto a parador. 120

Figure 4$. Turning the parador■ 121

As little understood as the parador prior to Foster's pioneering work (1948, 1955)» moldes are probably the Acatecan potter's most indis­ pensable pieces of equipment. Three kinds are in use in Acatlan: the press mold, the "mushroom" or convex mold, and the vertical-halves mold.

All three are now known to have been in use in Mesoamerica before the

Conquest.

In Acatlan, press molds are used mostly for small details, such as the leaves and flowers on "trees-of-life" (Fig. 46). They are ex­ tremely useful for the rapid production of a large number of identical motifs. A potter finds it useful to have several press molds with different designs. Mario uses press-molded details sometimes as decora­ tion on a tinaja or maceta . The vertical-halves mold is less popular, possibly due to the fact that using it is a slower process than using the convex mold. Foster (1948:357) found that their use appeared "to be limited to the state of Michoacan and immediately adjacent areas."

Mario, however, states firmly that they have "always" used them in Acat­ lan, although he uses them only for one of the objects he manufactures.

The "mushroom" or convex mold is the most important of the three and is used for most of the work that is made in Acatlan, whether for the Sunday market or for the tourist trade. Mario has over 50 of these in his collection, in sizes and shapes suitable to any item he is likely to make (Fig. 4%). Some of them he very seldom uses now— for example, those for molcajetes (Fig. 48) and other domestic wares. Some, including the very large molds he uses for barriles, are needed only occasionally.

One of his molds was made in 1932 and is among those he inherited from his father, who was also a potter; others are almost as old, including 122

Figure 46. A "tree-of-life." 123

:

Figure 4%. Convex molds. 124

/ir

# A i*:''1

/ #

Figure 48. Molca.jete molds, 125

some that he purchased from a potter's widow. Most were made hy Mario himself at various times when he needed a specific type of mold for a specific operation. Their origins can he told at a glance, as each was initialed and dated when it was made.

Moldes range in size from moleajete molds some 10 centimeters in diameter and T or 8 centimeters high to molds for barriles and anforas,

80 centimeters to a meter high and 50 to 60 centimeters wide at the widest point. None has a "mushroom" handle, as pictured by Foster

(l955:Figure l). Some of the smaller molds, such as the molcajete and cazuela molds, are bowl-shaped or hemispherical, resting, in use, directly upon their rims if not small enough to hold in the hand. Others more closely resemble heavy jars and in use these too rest firmly on their sturdy rims. With the exception of the molcajete molds, which have a pattern incised, the molds have roughened exteriors which serve to keep the paste from sticking to the surface. Walls are 1 to 2 centimeters thick, depending on the size. Broken, they are difficult to identify in an archeological context, as there is nothing to distinguish them from "ordinary domestic wares."

After being removed from the molds, work is continued on one of three supports: a parador that is filled with pulverized arena, a ladrillo (Fig. 44), or a tabla. This enables the piece to be moved about without damage between stages of the work. Alternatively, the work can be turned in the parador alone or supported by a tabla or ladrillo placed on the parador. Ladrillos are fired clay floor tiles 27 centimeters square that are purchased for a peso each from one of the three brick factories in town. These are not quite the functional equivalents of 126

the tabla and have not, due to size, entirely replaced them. Tablas

are fired clay discs made by the potter for his own use. They are

smooth on the top and petate-marked on the bottom and from 20 to 60

centimeters in diameter. Although tablas are used like ladrillos to

support work in progress, larger tablas can be used as a clean work

surface on which to roll out coils, make handles, and unmold a great

number of press-molded details. Tablas are also sometimes used as wedging boards.

Most of the rest of Mario's equipment is purchased. Two of these, the first quite ancient, the second relatively recent, are the petate

(Fig. 29) and sheet plastic. Petates date back in Mesoamerica at least seven to nine thousand years. Potters prepare their materials on them, do most of their work either sitting or kneeling on them, and occasionally use them to shade their wares from the sun to prevent too rapid drying.

Petates are mats woven of tule or palm, come in a number of sizes, and are purchased either in the Sunday market or, if one is needed during the week, at Lupita's tienda on the Avenida Reforma. The price varies according to quality and size, but a 1 by 2 meter petate from Amatitlan made of palm sells for about 35 to 40 pesos. New petates are not bought for pottery-making but for bedding, and the old ones "pass" into use in the workshop.

Sheet plastic is a very recent innovation and has become so in- dispensible that no one can remember how they got along without it.

It is sold for 2 to 3 pesos a square meter, the more expensive being twice as heavy a gauge. The plastic is used for a number of purposes— covering the prepared clay body until it is needed, keeping unfinished 127

work in progress from becomming overdry should the potter have to leave it, and keeping the edges of an unfinished object moist enough to build on while the lower walls of a large vessel dry out enough to support additional weight.

Metal screening is also a relatively recent addition to the pot­ ter's inventory and is now used throughout Mexico to separate out roots, twigs, small stones, and other foreign matter from the clay. Presumably, this dross had to be removed manually before screen wire became available.

The screening is nailed or stapled to a frame to resemble a window screen.

This object is either supported above the ground on four stones or is propped up by a length of wood used as an easel (Fig. 36). Sometimes it is leaned against a wall or tree while the dry material is shoveled through it. When barro negro is being mixed with the dry materials, however, the screen rests directly on these latter and the wet barro negro is poured, pushed, and rubbed through the mesh.

Containers of every size are used from winning the raw materials to washing the sooty fired wares before they are sold. Empty jars and cans are saved for paint and water. Large 20-liter oil cans and canvas bags are bought second-hand. Other containers include whole and broken ceramic wares and plastic and galvanized pails, these last purchased for use in the pottery but alternately serving the household.

Facilities

With the exception of their kilns, few Acatecan potters are for­ tunate enough to have facilities available that serve exclusively for pottery-making. Space is at a premium in most of their crowded house­ holds and must be shared with domestic activities. The yard behind 128

the Martinez house and workshop is one example. It is partially divided

into sections by the unfinished masonry walls that will someday add two rooms to the__house. The second and smaller of those has become the home of a piglet, a recent capital investment. The first and larger of the future rooms is immediately adjacent to the house and is the space most exclusively devoted to working purposes. This area is used for storage, both for molds that are not in use and for wares that are ready to be fired. Its major function is, however, that of a drying yard (Fig. 49).

Both molds and greenware are dried here, the former before they can be reused, the latter at various stages of construction and after finishing.

Although the sun cannot be considered a facility, it is certainly an ally of the Acatecan potter. The combination of the hot sun and the shadeless drying yard eliminates the need to store drying greenware for days or even weeks before it can be fired.

On rare occasions, when their older siblings are in school and their mother must be absent as well, the smallest children might be put to play in the drying yard under the eye of their father. As a rule, however, most of the outside domestic activities are confined to the side yard closest to the water tap. Even here the space must be shared, as this is the area where the finishing touches are given the wares be­ fore they are fired and where any ashes or soot are cleaned off after­ wards. With the pig now occupying the space formerly used by Teresa for drying her laundry, she has had to move her lines to the end of the lot outside of the house walls. This area used to be exclusively devoted to the kiln, wood storage, and storage of wares that are ready to fire.

There is not much conflict, however, as the present scarcity of fuel 129

M

m

2 7

Figure hg. The drying yard. 130

precludes its storage, the finished wares are left in the drying yard,

and on days when firing is to be done, Teresa is too busy to wash

clothes.

Mario's kiln is almost at the end of his lot and is separated by

a narrow passage from his neighbor's wall (Fig. 50). It is of the simple

updraft type most common in Acatlan and found throughout Mexico where

the indigenous kiln is still in use. It is an open cylinder, a little

over two meters in diameter. The 30-centimeter-thick adobe walls reduce

the interior diameter to about one and a half meters. The outside height

of these walls is about one meter. The inside depth varies, depending

on the buildup of ashes, wasters, and mud. Usually, this buildup is

shoveled out only once every three or four firings to again level the

floor with the outside ground (there is no grate to interfere with this

operation). Three hornillos or firemouths are at ground level, spaced

equidistant around the kiln walls. Mario's are shaped like equilateral triangles 30 centimeters on each side; some hornillos are square.

Mario built his kiln 15 years ago with some help from his friends.

He keeps it in good repair, mending cracks when they occur, and expects

it to last indefinitely. If this is considered a "permanent" kiln, there is a second, less common type in use in Acatlan that can be called

"temporary." These are built by Heron Martinez and his imitators to

fire very large wares such as the trees-of-life Heron has recently specialized in. Some of these extremely complex and fragile objects are up to two meters high and are extremely difficult to fire. They are set in place in the firing area, and a kiln of adobe blocks is built around them. Hornillos are included both at ground level and 131

I

1 W I*

m . S

Figure 50. The kiln. 132

half-way up, although the kiln has been carefully fueled as it was built. These "temporary" kilns are similar in design but not pro­ portion to Mario's. They tend to be twice as high as wide, rather than the reverse. Temporary kilns are also used by the brickmakers.

These hold 1,500 27-centimeter-square ladrillos, which have taken three men five days to make. They are fired on the sixth day in a temporary kiln similar to the other Acatecan kilns although about twice the size of most of them; their hornillos, for example, are large enough to accept organo as a fuel. CHAPTER VII

MAKING THE POTTERY

The Basic Process

Almost all of the pottery made in Acatlân is formed on, or started on, the convex or "mushroom" mold. Although Acatecan potters are familiar with most of the classic handhuilding techniques, any use of these is usually in combination with the convex mold. Concave molding, including the vertical-halves mold, is infrequently used. Press- molding, coiling, and slab-building are all techniques that in Acatlan are used in combination with convex molding. The "pinch-pot" technique, known to anthropologists as "lump-modeling," is used very seldom, as it is unsuited for most production work. The method used by most Acatecan potters is one that combines one or more of these basic hand-building techniques with that of convex molding. A simplified classification of Acatecan methods would include: simple one-step vessels using only the mold, molded and coiled wares, molded and modeled wares, compound molded wares done on two molds, and complex objects that employ more than two techniques.

No matter how simple or complex the finished object is to be, the basic molding method is the same. The potter places the selected mold in front of him and, if it is still damp from previous use, he dusts it with pulverized tierra colorada, which serves as a mold release. He next takes from the mass at his side the right amount of clay for the object he is going to make and wedges the clay very briefly on the petate. The petate, too, has been dusted with tierra colorada, which

133 134

is kept handy in a howl at one side. After the brief wedging, the clay

paste is flattened into a tortilla by slapping it with both hands (Fig.

51). This action results in a round shape two to three centimeters

thick, a little smaller in diameter than the mold that will be used.

This tortilla is then picked up with both hands and placed on the mold

(Fig. 52). At this point, the paste neither covers the mold nor con­

forms to its shape; these changes are accomplished by the next steps.

The tortilla of paste is first slapped with the palms of the hands and

second tamped all over with a ball of clay until it assumes the shape of

the mold (Fig. 43). These actions start at the top of the mold and

work downward and outward. Extending and thinning the paste is the next

step, and this also starts at the center and works outward and downward.

If the tortilla has been made too thick, the excess is scraped off with

a cuchillo; usually, however, rolling the paste with a piece of elote

(Fig. 53) until it extends beyond the edges of the mold is sufficient.

The extra paste extending past the edges is next trimmed away with the

cuchillo and the piece is set aside until it dries enough to remove from

the mold. The potter then repeats these steps with other molds until

his first object is dry enough to return to. Mario and other master

potters sit surrounded by works in various stages of completion, including

up to a dozen starts still on their molds. This number, of course, varies with the skill and experience of the potter, the size and shape of the

objects involved, and the thickness of their walls. The weather is also

an important factor, inasmuch as drying times are doubled during the

rainy season.

The next step, that of removing the started wares from their molds,

is a crucial one (Fig. 54). If the paste is still too moist, the object 135

Figure 51. Flattening the clay. 136

Figure 52. Placing the paste on the mold. 137

Figure 53. Thinning the walls with elote. 138

Figure 5^* Removing the mold. 139

will collapse. I f allowed to stay too long on the mold, the object will crack from drying shrinkage. The paste is removed by inverting the mold onto a ladrillo or tabla or directly into a parador filled with pul­ verized arena. The support selected depends both on the object's shape and on the way it is to be finished. As a general rule, those objects that have other than flat bottoms and those that are finished by turning are placed directly into paradores (Fig. 4$). From time to time, the paste sticks to the mold, a condition caused by using a damp mold or by using too little tierra colorada. Normally, the situation is quickly brought under control by tamping the resisting object with a ball of clay that has been flattened somewhat on the tierra colorada on the petate.

Up until this point, with a few minor exceptions, forming methods have been the same for all of the articles produced. These exceptions include ring-bases and tripodal supports that are added to some forms while still on the mold; most shapes,however, are flat-bottomed and need no other support. Simple one-step vessels require little more attention; after unmolding, the edge is finished and they are done.

The moleajete is an example. Mario seldom makes these unless one is needed by Teresa or some member of her family, and he has only a few molcajete molds (Fig. 48) that had belonged to his father. Potters who specialize in domestic wares require three dozen or so, as the process is so simple and so rapid that an experienced worker can turn out a molcajete in less than a minute. In fact, it is so simple that this is one of the vessel forms chosen by the "amateurs" to specialize in.

The molds for these are deeply incised with the patterns and designs which will appear in relief on the interior of the finished molcajete l4o

and which function as the vessel's grinding surface. The molds are hemispherical, small enough to hold in the hand in use, with a size range of 10 to 15 cm. in diameter and 7 to 10 cm. deep. The tortilla of clay paste is quite firmly fitted to the mold to make sure that it is pressed into all of the incisions. The edge is next trimmed with the cuchillo flush with the edge of the mold while the mold is still held in the hand. Before it is set aside to dry, three elongated lumps of clay are attached to the base. These are "pulled" to form feet by wetting the ends of the fingers of one hand and, grasping the lump firmly, at the same time drawing it away from the vessel to a point. The molca­ jete is then set aside to dry, still on its mold, and another is started.

This sequence is repeated until the first to be started is dry enough to be unmolded— firm but not yet leather-hard. Moleajetes are small enough to unmold onto the hand. Once in hand, the vessel is tapped on a ladrillo to blunt the feet so that it will be wobblefree in use, and the rim is finished. For this, a coil of clay is added to the edge, firmed on with a rapid, circular, pinching motion, and then smoothed and thinned with a folded damp rag. Less than a minute is required for the entire finishing operation.

Other one-step vessels include cups, bowls, and casseroles. Bowl forms are the simplest, requiring little more work than a finished rim.

Cups and casseroles have added handles. These are formed by rolling out coils on the tabla, cutting them to size, and curving them to the correct shape. They are then allowed to dry to leather-hardness before being attached to the leather-hard vessels for which they were made. Most single-step vessels are relatively small domestic wares intended for l4i

the Sunday market. Mario uses this system, however, to form flower-pots

from 25 to 35 cm. high. Differences, other than their size, include

a drainage hole at the bottom and a fluted edge. This type of edge is

formed from a coil, added and thinned as was done with the molcajetes,

and fluted immediately while it is still soft. Fluting methods differ

among potters. Some hold two fingers on the interior of the rim and

push the clay between them with the thumb. An alternative system used by many potters is simply to make successive depressions with the fore­

finger around the edge of the rim as the vessel is slowly rotated.

Molded and Coiled Vessels

The most common Acatecan pottery-making method and possibly the most ancient is a combination of molding and coiling. With the excep­ tion of simple one-step cups, bowls, casseroles, and molcajetes, most domestic vessels are produced by this method, including those very large vessels of the sort usually made to order. These include, among others, vessels for water and grain storage, large planters, and chimeneas (Figs.

20, 21) (the space heaters mentioned earlier). Pozoleros, an unusual vessel now very little in demand, are also made in this fashion. Pozo­ leros are bottomless barrels used to line a spring or natural well to keep the sides from caving in.

The larger the vessel, the longer it takes to construct. When

Mario makes any of these, it is usually done along with his regular work, as some of them require a day or more to construct. It took him, for example, three days to build three cantimploras, water storage vessels almost a meter high; these are also sometimes called anforas (Fig. 55)-

The first was started late on a Thursday afternoon, the second about l42

Figure 55- An an fora. 143

9:00 a.m. on Friday. Both of these were finished and a third started

before work stopped Friday evening. These were built up gradually,

as the vessel became firm enough to support the weight, of annular

rings added to the mold-made base. These rings, one or two of which

are added at a time, are two to three cm. thick and seven to eight cm. high. After they are added, they are scraped on both sides, first with

a broken piece of gourd and then with a rough corncob, the elote. This

scraping serves to weld the addition to the previous work and also to thin and raise the walls. During this sometimes vigorous procedure, a ball of clay is held behind the vessel wall that is being scraped to keep the wall from collapsing. While doing this, Mario sits on an unused, inverted mold and turns the parador, on which the work is resting, with the large toe of his right foot. The vessel is then set aside for an hour or so with sheet plastic covering only the edge. The covering prevents the edge from becoming too dry to accept the next addition while the uncovered body of the vessel dries enough to support the added weight.

Cantimploras, tinajas, and barriles are all built in the same fashion— started on a mold and finished with coils. All three are used for water storage. Tinajas are the shortest, averaging 40 cm. high and

40 cm. wide, those made by Raimundo Martinez cited earlier being ex­ ceptionally large. Cantimploras, or anforas, are generally taller—

80 cm. to a meter in height and half that in diameter. Both tinajas and cantimploras have restricted necks, sometimes with the addition of a fluted edge. Barriles and pozoleros are about the same height and diameter as cantimploras but taper to an open mouth about the same l44

diameter as the hase, roughly half that of their widest diameters. Mario

finishes these with a folded-over lip to give an additional reinforce­

ment to the rim.

Pozoleros are made with two horizontal handles. The other large

vessels have vertical handles, two for the tinajas and barriles and three for the cantimploras. They are, of course, proportionately thicker

and sturdier. The coils are usually flattened somewhat so that handles

are oval in section. These handles function only for carrying the ves­

sel empty, as they cannot support it filled with water. Pozolero handles

are horizontal, as they are used to lower the vessel into the well or

spring.

The chimeneas are among the largest vessels made by Acatecan potters and range in height from 1 to 1.5 meters (Mario's are almost exactly

1.2 meters). They are basically bottle shaped, but under their long necks, which serve as chimneys, the shape varies somewhat from potter to potter. Some are quite globular; others have almost straight walls.

Both painted and plastic decorations are used to make faces on the body of the chimeneas, the open mouth of the face serving as hornillo or fire port. Some of these faces are human, others animal. Jaguars, called tigres, are popular, with painted whiskers and spots that give them the appearance of having measles. Some of the plastic ornament on these is done while the vessels are still on the molds— the mouth, for example, is outlined with a coil of clay. The opening is not cut, however, until the object is removed from the mold and is leather-hard. It would other­ wise collapse.

Also made by molding and coiling is a vessel called an olla, which is the same shape, basically, as the ollas used as cooking vessels. It 145

is, however, more than twice the size. Other differences include a

fluted rim, a drainage hole, and often a band of ornate plastic decora­

tion. Both these, as well as the cooking ollas, have two vertical han­

dles that connect the neck with the shoulder. Some fifteen, made by

Mario all from the same mold for a special order, ranged from 55 to

60 cm. in height and 46 cm. in diameter at the widest part. According

to Mario, these are usually bought by Mexican tourists to use as planters on their patios.

Molded and Modeled Vessels

Of the tourists passing through Acatlan, Mexicans buy more flower­ pots than do Americans, who tend to prefer novelty items. One item that appeals to both nationalities are flowerpots in the shape of toads.

The Mexicans purchase these because toads are good luck symbols, the

Americans because they are "cute." Acatecan toads are found in curio and handicraft shops in Merida, Oaxaca, Puebla, Mexico City, and Juarez— probably representing an even wider Mexican distribution. They are also a popular item in import shops in the United States. Mario is but one of a number of Acatecan potters who make toads to fill this demand. He makes more toads than any other single item, from 40 to 90 or 100 in a week, depending upon their size (Fig. 49). Very often, weeks will pass before he receives an order for anything other than toads. He has molds for seven different sizes: the smallest l4 cm. long and 9 cm. high, the largest or "abuelos," 57 cm. long and 4l cm. high. These are asymetri- cal, appearing to be ovoid in shape when viewed from above. From the side, they bear a strong resemblance to the famous "shoe-pot," a vessel form that has had a long, unbroken sequence in the literature of American archeology. i46

Initial steps in making toads are much the same as for other mold- made wares. The clay is wedged, a thick oval shape is patted out on the petate, and the paste is transferred to the mold. The paste is next slapped with both hands, scraped with a cuchillo, and rolled with an elote until it reaches beyond the edges of the mold. After the excess is trimmed away with a cuchillo, the object is set aside to dry until it can be unmolded safely. From this point on, however, construction techniques are unique to toadmaking.

Depending on the size of the toad being made, a ladrillo or tabla is dusted with tierra colorada. The mold with the body of the toad is then inverted upon this prepared support. Before the mold is removed, a lump of paste is placed in front of the body and a short coil in back of it to support it and keep it from wobbling while being worked on.

Next, the front legs are made from a coil of clay of the appropriate length and breadth that is cut into two equal parts with the cuchillo.

The cut end of each is bent at a right angle to form a foot; the other end is "pulled" to a taper with wet fingers. The tapered end is stuck to the toad's chest with a smearing motion, the foot is flattened onto the ladrillo with a thumb, and toes are cut with the cuchillo or a flat stick.

Mario's methods of joining two parts differ greatly from accepted practice among Anglo-European potters. The Anglo-European carefully cross-hatches both surfaces to be joined, paints them with slip, and, after making the connection, further blends the parts together with his thumb or a modeling tool. Mario rather casually moistens the body with a damp hand and flicks a few drops of water on the leg before sticking the two parts together. i4t

It takes Mario almost as little time to make the toes of the toad

(Fig. 56). The thickest parts are now pierced in several places with

the wire to prevent spalling during firing.Next, the body is thinned

and smoothed with the elote followed by the palo de sauce. Last, the body is trimmed with an elliptical cut around the mold with the cuchillo, the mold is lifted out with great care, and both the mold and the toad

are put out to dry in the sun for about an hour. The time is almost doubled if the work stays inside.

When the body is dry enough for work to resume, the top of the head

is added. This is formed of a half-moon shape cut from a slab of clay that has first been flattened on the petate. The piece is joined to the moistened edge of the head, trimmed, and smoothed on with the elote.

The hind legs are now formed in a manner identical to the front legs.

Before they are attached, however, a "hip" is made of a disc of clay moistened with water and put into place. The hind leg is attached to this "hip" and a curved diagonal line is drawn across it with a finger to suggest a leg in sitting position. The toes are incised and the toad is again put aside to dry for an hour or so before the final touches are added. These touches include the drainage hole, if it has not yet been made; a fluted rim, done in the manner earlier described; and eyes and eyebrows. The eyes are made of two identically sized balls of clay stuck on and then flattened with a thumb. "Pupils" are then cut into the resulting eyeball with the mouth of a small glass pill bottle.

Eyebrows are formed from a larger ball of clay, flattened and cut into two half circles with the cuchillo. These half circles are each placed over an eye. A mouth, incised with the cuchillo, is the final step 148

Figure 56. Making toes on a toad. 149

before the toad is put aside to dry to bone dryness. When bone dry, it can be removed from its ladrillo or tabla and the support used for other work.

Other effigy flowerpots and planters are similarly made. After toads, the most popular are goats (Fig. 57), followed by bird forms that include swans, ducks, chickens, and geese. The appropriate heads, tails, feet, wings, or other details are made by modeling and added to the basic shape. These wares are often made on a mold that had originally been made to mold some domestic ware such as cantim­ ploras or barilles. This is not a new practice; Foster (1960:208) notes that

a single mold sometimes serves as base for several dif­ ferent final products: for example, the same mold may be used for a bull, a duck, and the chimbul.

This last named form, called the chimbul or cantaro, is made on a tall, narrow mold with outflaring walls, one of the most versatile molds in the potter's inventory.

Compound-Molded Objects

The reuse of molds for other objects (or possibly the manufacture of molds to serve more than one function) is quite common. Somewhat less common is the use of two different molds to form a single object.

One example of this practice is an object called a maceta, a flowerpot in the form of a head wearing a hat or crown, which is made in two parts (Fig. 58). The crown, which is the actual flowerpot, is formed on a mold originally made for medium or large bowls. A câ'^taro or cantimplora mold is selected for the head. The parts are formed sepa­ rately and, until joined, by the basic procedures followed for simple 150

Figure 57- Two goats. 151

Figure 58- Two macetas. 152

one-step vessels. A few extra precautions are taken while constructing the head, however, since it will have to support the weight of the crown both during construction and later when filled with earth and used as a flowerpot. The first of these precautions occurs while patting out the tortilla of paste. An extra amount of paste is left in the center of the tortilla so that when it is placed on the mold there will be sufficient material to spread evenly over the entire surface of the mold and to hang down past the cut-off point on the mold. It is of utmost importance that both the base and the walls of the vessel be of even thickness; any thinner or thicker areas are potential later trouble spots. If the base is too thin, the object will collapse when the crown is added. If the walls are too thin, the weight of the paste will cause them to tear away from the base even before the mold is inverted and removed.

The crowns are formed on bowl molds that, lacking bases, rest directly on the petate. To use one, Mario pats out a large, flat tortilla of paste, scrapes it with the cuchillo to ensure its flatness, and, again with the cuchillo, cuts it into a perfect circle. After he transfers this disc to the mold, he thins it further by scraping and rolling. Both sections are then set aside to dry for an hour or more.

Frequently, as many as a dozen heads will be made before the crowns are started, so important is it that they have sufficient time to dry enough to support the tops. Work on a head does not resume until this point is reached. Then, prior to unmolding, a mouth is formed with a coil of clay and annealed to the surface by wiping it around with a damp rag.

The mold is then inverted directly into a parador, filled with arena 153

or tierra colorada and supported on this bed with a coil of clay. The

mold is removed, and any interior cracks are repaired before the top

is trimmed. To make sure that this trimming is done evenly, the potter

marks a line all around with the cuchillo. The hand holding the knife

is steadied by the measuring stick, which rests firmly on the ground

(Fig. 59). The excess clay is then cut away with one hand while the

other keeps trimmed clay from falling into the unfinished vessel. During

both of these operations, the parador is kept turning steadily with

the foot.

The vessel is again put aside to dry, this interval ending when

the vessel is slightly less dry than leather-hard. N o w , the outward

flaring walls must be changed to a slightly carinated shoulder. To

accomplish this, the palo de sauce is held at a 45° angle and rolled

around the dampened edge while the parador is kept revolving. The

palo is kept damp but not wet, and work continues until the vessel

assumes the correct shape. If everything has been timed correctly,

the crown is now dry enough to be attached and unmolded. It is

tamped all over with a ball of clay to loosen it from the mold, the

mold is inverted and the cuchillo is inserted, and run around the inside

of the rim. The edge of the base is then dampened, and the crown, mold

and all, is very gingerly rested upon it. The two parts must be thorough­

ly welded together before this upper mold is removed— a process that

requires two steps. The first of these steps resembles the technique

used to incline the shoulder of the lower vessel and involves the same tools and motions. While the object is revolved on the parador, the

dampened palo de sauce, held at the same 45° angle, is rolled over the

crack between upper and lower parts. To further strengthen this joint 154

Figure 59. Using the measuring stick. 155

(a potentially weak one since it can be welded only from the outside) a coil is added and sealed on with a folded damp rag while the parador is turned with the foot. Sometimes this coil is decorated with hatching while it is still plastic; just as frequently, it is left plain.

The upper mold is now removed with great care and the finishing touches are started. First, the inside of the bowl is scraped smooth, any developing cracks are filled in, and a drainage hole drilled with the point of the cuchillo. The features of the face are now added

(eyebrows, eyes, nose, mustache, and ears seem to be Mario's preferred order). Holes are cut for eyes and mouth with the cuchillo, the hole for the mouth inside the previously applied lips (Fig. 60). The eye­ brows and mustache, made of small coils or strips of paste, are stamped

(while still soft) with the end of a flat stick to form a series of short, straight, vertical lines representing hairs. After the ears are incised with an "S" curve, the face is done. The crown is finished last. Its edge is trimmed, if necessary; incurved with the palo de sauce; and smoothed and thinned with a damp rag. These last three operations are performed while the vessel is turning. The front of the crown is trimmed with plastic decoration— applied flowers made by hand or press-molded, with a spray of leaves, are favored.

The brasero (Fig. 6l), a form very similar to the maceta , is con­ structed in an almost identical manner. The major difference between the two forms is function. The brasero is a small cookstove used for cooking an olla of beans over a charcoal fire. Because of this use, the mouths on braseros must be large enough for a hand to reach in with charcoal lumps or matches. The brasero's crown is shallow, almost flat in some 150

Figure 60. Cutting the openings in a maceta. 157

Figure 6l. Braseros, 158

cases, having been made on a cazuela mold. Instead of a tiny drainage

hole, it is pierced with a star-shaped or flower-shaped pattern of

cut-outs to allow the heat from the charcoal fire in the bottom vessel

to cook the contents of the olla.

Mario makes a third compound-molded object called a lëfmpara (Fig.

62). This is a candle shield to be set down over a candle to keep it

from being extinguished by the wind. Lainparas are more decorative than

useful, as very little light can filter through their pierced openings.

Mario's lamparas are pear-shaped, the bottom made on a bowl mold, the

top on a mold particularly made for the purpose. Both sections are made

in the same fashion earlier described. Differences are found, however,

in the joining together process. Top and bottom sections of the lamparas must be welded together flush, rather than the ball-and-cup fit of the upper and lower vessels of macetas and braseros. The bottom section is unmolded onto a ladrillo and trimmed, but its edge is not canted inward.

The top section is unmolded and both parts are allowed to dry until firm but not yet leather-hard. The edges of both are then moistened and the two parts fitted together, with any chinks or gaps between the two being filled with plastic clay forced in with the end of a finger. The ob­ ject on its ladrillo is then turned on the parador while first the elote, next the willow, is rolled over the weld to seal it. A stem is added to the top, and it is set aside to dry until leather-hard. When this stage is reached, Mario divides the lamps into horizontal zones for the cut­ outs. To make these, he holds a short, pointed stick horizontally in his right hand while the hand is supported by the measuring stick. As his left hand turns the parador, the pointed stick incises faint lines on the lamp for use by Teresa as guidelines. Teresa then uses these 159

%

Figure 62. Lamparas. i6o

guidelines to cut bands of openings around the body of the lamp with

the cuchillo. Crescents, diamonds, triangles, stars, and circles are

among the motifs selected. Lastly, a circle is removed from the bottom

and the ware is put aside for its final drying.

The Vertical-Halves Mold

Mario uses the vertical-halves mold for only one of the objects

that he manufactures, a rana, or frog, 25 cm. high (Fig. 63). Those

that Mario makes are purely decorative, although some potters make frogs

with a flower pot on their backs. Acatecan potters make frogs in a

variety of sizes, ranging from 10 to 50 cm. in height, which are bought

primarily by American, rather than Mexican, tourists. The frogs are basically ovoid; vertically oriented in a sitting position; and have

cut out, inverted, crescent-shaped mouths and added legs.

To make these, the potter slaps out the clay paste into an oval

shape several centimeters larger than needed, scrapes it flat, and fits

it into the half-mold where it is further scraped and thinned. Next, the edges and mouth are trimmed flush with the mold half with the cu­

chillo . He then puts it aside to dry while repeating these actions with the second half mold. When firm but not yet leather-hard, the edges of the paste in both halves of the mold are moistened, and the two parts are joined. The join is further strengthened by reaching into the open mouth and woiking the two parts together with the finger. One half of the mold is now removed and the object rests, lying on its side in the other half. After 20 to 30 minutes, the frog is carefully unmolded by inverting it either onto the hand or onto the petate, depending on size.

After it is unmolded, it is set upright on a ladrillo supported by a coil i6i

HP v t

Figure 63. Frog and bowl with tripodal support made by children. 162

of clay, and the weld is sealed from the outside. Next, the legs are modeled by "pulling," are affixed to the body, and the "toes" and "fin­ gers" are incised with a flat stick. Techniques of making the eyes vary from potter to potter; some simply stamp a circle directly onto the body, others use flattened balls of clay, and some combine the two by stamping a circle onto the flattened ball of clay, a system Mario uses for toad's eyes.

Complex Constructions

The techniques of convex molding, press-molding, coiling, modeling, and even the pinch-pot are combined to manufacture some of Acatlan's largest wares, the tree-of-life (Figs. 17, 46, 64, 65). Although they do serve to hold candles, these complex constructions are more decora­ tive than functional. Most recently inspired by the work of Aurelio

Flores in Izucar de Matamoros 8j km. to the north on route 190, their ultimate roots go back to the Old World. They are, according to Harvey

(1973:151), one of the earliest symbols of fertility and rebirth. Ori­ ginating in the Middle East and taken to Spain by the Moors, the form was brought by the Spanish to the New World as

the clay tree of life did not appear until after the Conquest. Its original motifs were religious. Leaf-clad Adams and Eves are still used most often. Other trees have moon crescents with angel faces, hot pink apples suspended on wires, and serpents lurking in jungle-like trees. It may be filled with fantastically hued birds and butterflies or crowned lions leering from the branches. On top, a superb angel may hold the world. Still others depict the Flight to Egypt or the story of the Nativity. Medallions, swags, garlands, and even columns straight out of the European renaissance and the baroque era are used.

Unlike some of the other wares produced by Acatecan potters, no two trees-of-life are alike. Individual styles are recognizable in these. 163

:& '/ ^r.

Figure 6k. A "tree-of-life." i64

\^ o

f

Figure 65. Two small "trees-of-life." 165

however, as they are in the other wares. Trees-of-life vary in size,

complexity, decoration, and merit; their prices reflect all of these

factors, with a range in American dollars from one to a thousand. Some

are as small as 25 cm. in height and width; some made by Heron Martinez

exceed 2 meters in both dimensions. Some have only one or two motifs,

others a bewildering multiplicity. Heron builds his trees-of-life on

a particular theme that is consistent throughout the work. One of his

recent trees, for example, featured a number of mermaids playing musical

instruments while fish and other marine creatures sported about the edges

of the piece.

Whether simple or complex, large or small, the form requires a

sturdy base. Styles in these vary. Some trees are built directly on

a central figure, or figures, whether human or animal, as was the case

with Heron's mermaids. Others are based on a round or oval flat plat­

form or a hemisphere built on a bowl mold. A trunk or central figure

or figures will be attached to this base. The tree is built upwards and

outwards from this central core and is assembled of a number of elements made by various techniques. Often underlying these diverse motifs is a

framework made of "branches" of coils of clay. Coils are rolled out on

the tabla, curved into arcs of varying lengths and diameters. Other

coiled forms include tendrils, stems, spirals, decorative volutes, and

"grecas" (reversed spiral motifs). Small motifs that will be wanted in great number, such as flowers, fruit, and leaves, are usually made in a press-mold. Many potters, particularly those who specialize in trees- of-life, have three or four dozen press-molds among their possessions.

Before a press-mold is used, it is dusted with tierra colorada. The 166

paste is then slapped into the mold with force and scraped flush with

the surface with the cuchillo. The motif is then turned out to dry on

a ladrillo that also has had tierra colorada sifted onto it. Some of

these press-molded motifs are altered slightly hy hand-modeling after

they have dried slightly. A leaf, for example, might be curved over a

finger. Hand-modeling is also used for small birds, animals, and people.

These have added details, such as wings or clothing or "pulled" arms,

legs, and tails. Forms that are too large to be modeled solid and fired

safely are started on a convex mold of the approximate size and shape

desired and have coiled and modeled additions. "Lump-modeling," one

of the few uses of this technique in Acatlan, is used for the candlecups.

It is convenient to describe the construction of a tree-of-life

as proceeding in stages. In the initial stage, the base, or central

figure unit, is made. While this is drying, the other elements needed

in the first stage of construction are made; as these are smaller than the basic unit, they will take less time to dry and, ideally, will reach the desired level of firmness at the same time. "Branches" are added to the trunk; flowers, leaves, and fruit are added to the branches; and birds and butterflies, people and animals, and angels and devils further burden the form. These are added upward and outward from the central base as the stage preceding the addition has dried enough to support the added weight. Some of the largest of these constructions require as long as a month to build, and even the average 75-centimeter to one-meter size will require more than a week.

An unusual feature of the tree-of-life is the technique used to join the parts. They are connected with short lengths of l4-gauge gal- 167

vanized wire. These pieces of wire, four to five cm. long, are thrust into a branch or figure, and the succeeding branch or element is im­ paled on it. Wires are also bent into "U" shapes that are pushed into the underside of a branch and a bird or butterfly attached to it with another "U". This practice gives some degree of movement to the tree.

Other motifs occasionally used for this reason are children or girls on swings and the Angel Gabriel with his trumpet. These are suspended with nylon or cotton cord added after firing.

Trees-of-life are the most difficult articles to make in the

Acatecan potters' repertoire, yet there are no secrets to their con­ struction that are not known to everyone. None of the separate com­ ponents is difficult to make. Some, for example press-molded leaves, are so simple that they are made by the children in some households.

The real secret of success in making these wares is time and patience.

Everyone wants to emulate Heron's example, but few can afford the in­ vestment of time involved. Of these few, fewer still have the patience and skill to duplicate his achievements. CHAPTER VIII

FINISHING THE POTTERY

Drying the Wares

Before the wares can be fired, they must be air dried to reach a

state called, by Anglo-European potters, "bone dry." In higher lati­

tudes of the northern Temperate Zone (e.g., the northeastern United

States), it sometimes takes as much as a month for very large, thick wares

to reach this condition. Such a time schedule and the need to protect the

drying wares from precipitation creates a considerable storage problem as

production continues. Acatecan potters are fortunate in this regard, as

most of them, like Mario, have a section of their patios or yards set aside

for the purpose of drying both greenware and equipment (Fig. 4-9). An even

more important advantage enjoyed by the Acatecan potter is his climate.

Climatic conditions in Acatlan approach those considered by Hamer (1975:

104) as almost ideal for the purpose of drying pottery. He states that

warm, dry and breezy weather is more effective than cool, damp and still weather. The most effective conditions could cause unequal drying out at rims and handles. This results in warpage and cracking and must be avoided by sheltering the pots or slowing down the drying rate. Pots will need to be turned around and over to even out the effects of sun and wind.

Warpage is seldom a problem in Acatlan due to the nature of the clay body used. Drying cracks occur, but with constant attention the danger

from these is minimized. Whenever someone moves a piece of work or a mold into or out of the house, he checks the condition of the other drying wares. Frequently, Mario will send a child to check the progress of a

168 169

specific piece with instructions to turn it over or to move it into the shade if it has reached a certain level of dryness. Wares are sometimes brought into the house and covered either partially or entirely with sheet plastic to prevent too rapid drying. With the amount of care and attention given the drying process, cracking is not a common occurrence. Breakage poses a greater problem and happens more frequently than cracking. Bone dry greenware is extremely fragile and subject to damage. Parts that protrude are particularly vulnerable. These include such easily broken parts as the ears and noses on macetas and braseros, ducks' bills, goats' horns, and fluted edges. Broken toads' feet are the most common accident in the Martinez' household, reflecting the fact that more toads are made than any other single item. During the rainy season, accidents are much more numerous. Greenware must be stacked two, three, or four deep inside the house in an already overcrowded space waiting sometimes for

2 to 3 weeks to be fired.

Unless a drying object is completely beyond repair, an effort is made to salvage it. The more moisture the object contains when it is repaired, the more effective and successful the mend is likely to be.

Drying cracks are easily and quickly filled with paste, either with the cuchillo or with the finger, depending on the size of the crack. The new paste is then scraped level with the surface of the object and observed closely until the ware is dry to make sure that the defect does not reopen.

Bone dry wares that have broken are likely to need more drastic ac­ tion, such as reattachment of broken parts or, if these have shattered, replacement with new ones. When a toad leg or other piece breaks off a vessel, it is placed inside the vessel and the object is set aside for 170

later repairs, usually when several accumulate. Both the part and the

section of the vessel to which it is to he attached are moistened with

water, and a small amount of paste is smeared on the two surfaces to he

joined. The part is then pushed firmly into place on the vessel and held

until it sticks. The excess paste that oozes out of the repair is then

scraped off with the cuchillo. If the broken part is too fragmented for

such treatment, a replacement part must he made of plastic clay hody and

attached, a much more difficult task. First, the hody of the vessel is moistened with as much water as it will absorb, the new part is made,

and it is allowed to stiffen somewhat. The body is again moistened and the two parts are joined; adhesion is more likely if both body and part are equal in water content. Drying cracks are expected between new and old work. These are filled as they occur.

Not all of these repairs are immediately successful; some must be done in stages, some of them never work. Unfortunately, some mends that appear to have been quite successful fail only while they are being fired.

The object then is usually a total loss, the paste cannot be reused, and it "took the space for nothing" in the kiln. Frequently, desperation measures are used on these, such as re-repairing the break with plastic paste and refiring. Although this should not, in theory, he possible,

Acatecan potters succeed in such repairs. Trees-of-life which fre­ quently crack around the wires when drying are repaired with paste be­ fore firing. These same cracks often open again in the kiln hut are repaired after firing with plaster of Paris. Since most trees-of-life are painted with acrylic paints, the mends become invisible. All mended 171

items are all too prone to break again in the same place. For this rea­

son, such wares are handled with extreme caution until turned over to

the trader.

Painting and Polishing the Wares

Domestic wares and ware such as trees-of-life that will be painted

with acrylic paints are ready to be fired as soon as they are bone dry.

The highly polished red or black finish used on much of the tourist trade

pottery must be done before firing; the firing determines the final color

of the wares, red or black. The wares are ready for this finish as soon

as they are bone dry but, in practice, this is not done until there are

enough for a kiln load, the entire load being done the same day that they

are to be fired.

In the Martinez household, Teresa usually takes charge of this operation with the help of her older sons. Mario continues his own work

in the workshop while this is being done, waiting until almost all of the wares are ready to fire before he goes out to prepare the kiln. Finishing a kiln load of pottery can require most of a day's time and is sometimes, but not often, started the day before. More frequently, firing must be postponed until the work is finished.

With the exception of the rainy season, Teresa prefers to paint and polish the wares outside in the patio. There are a number of reasons for her preference, least of which is the fact that the work is so messy.

From the patio she can watch her dinner cooking and keep an eye on the children. The drying yard is convenient, as is the water supply. It is also more pleasant to work in the shade of the trees than in the house, work seems to go faster, and neighbors seeing her at work will stop for 172

a chat. Before she can start, a number of preparations must be made.

The tinta from the week before is brought out and stirred up and a new batch is started. An old petate or two is laid down, the portable radio, if it is working, is turned on and put up in one of the trees, and the necessary tools and rags are found. When all of the necessaries are gathered around her, including four to six vessels within arm's reach,

Teresa starts to work sitting cross-legged in her oldest clothes with an old sheet across her lap.

Finishing a kiln load of wares by painting and polishing them is a long, tedious day's work for one person and, if she knows that she must do it by herself, Teresa tries to do some of it the day before. Mario usually fires on Saturday, however, and even during the schoolyear there is a son or two to help her on Saturday morning. There are a number of steps involved in the process and when there is more than one person working, the operation can be set up almost like an assembly line. With three persons working at the task, the entire kiln load can be done in about 5 hours.

Each vessel is first inspected carefully; should it need any re­ pairs that have so far escaped notice, it is set aside. Previously re­ paired vessels are particularly carefully scrutinized. The vessel is now carefully scraped all over the surface with the side of the cuchillo and then sanded with sandpaper. The purpose of the scraping and sanding is to eliminate any of the coarser particles of arena that might be pro­ truding from the surface; the operations leave the surface pitted and pockmarked instead. The surface is then evened by filling the pits and any hairline cracks left from earlier repairs with the thickened deposit from the bottom of the previous week's tinta (Fig. 66). 173

Figure 66. Oscar filling pits and small cracks with tinta. 174

After sanding, scraping, and filling, the wares are ready for their

first coat of tinta. Once all of the work has heen filled in, the old

tinta is stirred up and used for the first coat. The vessel, if small

enough, is held firmly in the lap with one hand. With the other hand,

a rag is dipped in the old tinta, squeezed as dry as possible, and wiped

over the surface of the object. This is repeated until the vessel is

covered. It is then set aside to dry. The second coat is done with

fresh tinta and is applied in the same manner. This second coat must be

quickly polished with a dry rag while it is still damp— probably the most

difficult step in the process (Fig. 67). If done correctly, the entire

surface of the vessel is given a smooth, highly polished reddish-brown

finish which it retains through firing when fired in an oxidizing atmos­

phere. When fired in a reducing atmosphere, this same finish turns a

glossy black.

Finishing the wares in such fashion has been variously described

by the Martinez boys as "boring," "dirty," and "a nuisance." It can

also be described as dangerous, at least as far as the wares are concerned.

It is very easy to snap off a part or to punch a hole in the wall of the

fragile greenware while scraping or sanding it. Applying the tinta is

also hazardous; if too much liquid soaks into the bone dry vessel's walls,

they are likely to collapse. If the final coat of tinta is applied too

wet, it washes the first coat off, giving streaky results. One or two

gains of arena that are overlooked can scratch great gouges in a vessel wall while it is being polished.

The entire vessel is not coated with tinta. The insides of toads

and other vessels intended for flowerpots are not painted nor are other 175

Figure 67. Salvador polishing an urna. 176 parts that will remain unseen in use, such as bases. There are more functional reasons for this omission than merely saving a little of the difficult-to-obtain tinta or an hour or two of labor for painting and polishing a kiln load of wares. Burnishing, as Hamer (1975:314) points out, seals the surface pores of the clay. If the vessel were to be com­ pletely burnished, the steam, unable to escape in firing, would build up pressure until it blew itself free, resulting in the loss of the vessel.

Unpainted sections fire to a pale, almost pink, terracotta color in an oxidizing atmosphere and to a dull gray in a reducing atmosphere. Fre­ quently, objects that are to be fired in an oxidizing atmosphere are made to take advantage of this contrast in color. Mario will sometimes receive an order for toads or other forms with molded and modeled leaves and flowers. These relief decorations, painted with tinta, stand out in strong contrast to their very much lighter backgrounds (Fig. 68). Another example of the use of this decorative technique was found one year when it became fashionable to make chimeneas with feline faces called tigres.

These had faces covered with painted tinta spots, and a row of them in the Lopez warehouse suggested an epidemic of a childhood disease rather than the ferocity intended.

Firing the Wares

Anglo-European potters might agree with Cardew's (1969:170) state­ ment that "clayware, however much skill and knowledge has gone into its making, has no commercial value until it has been fired." In many potters' households in Acatlan, including Mario's, as much as half of this "com­ mercial value" has already been realized in advance payments from the trader. The fact that this payment has been long spent and that the rest 177

«

Figure 68. Painted relief decoration. 178

of the money from the kiln load is desperately needed makes the success­ ful firing of the week's works one of the most crucial stages in the entire pottery-making operation.

In the Martinez household, firing usually occurs once a week, seldom oftener, more likely on Saturday than any other day, and usually late in the afternoon when all of the wares have heen painted and polished. If too dark before the wares are ready to fire, firing is deferred until the next day. Mario never fires at night and does not know anyone in Acatlan who follows that practice.

When almost all of the wares have been second-coated and polished, firing preparations are begun. It is usually Juan who carries the finished pieces back toward the kiln, one or two at a time, depending on their size.

By this time, Mario has stopped working in the house and gone back to get the kiln ready. He climbs inside and shovels out the accumulation of ash and, if it is the rainy season, mud until the floor of the kiln is level and dry. Next, he prepares a bed of fuel and large wasters on which the wares will rest in lieu of a grate while they are being fired. When he is satisfied that this is ready, he starts stacking the wares. He remains inside loading the pieces handed him by Juan and Salvador (Fig. 69) until there is no more room and he must climb out to finish the job.

The largest wares are loaded first, the really large ones, such as chimeneas or barriles in the center, other large wares surrounding them.

Every piece must be securely placed to prevent its moving or shifting during the firing yet not so tightly packed as to be smashed as the pieces expand or contract at different stages. To prevent this, some wares are braced against each other, others kept from touching by waster sherds 179

i

Figure 69. Loading the kiln. l 80

inserted between them. After the first layer is completely set with the largest pieces, Mario climbs out and finishes loading by leaning over the wall. As he stacks upward, the size of the wares diminishes— first large, then two or three layers of medium-sized wares. The small wares go on the very top with quite tiny objects fitted inside the larger ones. These might include objects the size of a moleajete,or some of the wares Mario might fire as a favor for one of the old women he helps. Such objects as motifs to be added to trees-of-life, pipes, beads, and pendants are placed inside larger objects more to prevent their loss or breakage than to con­ serve space. Practice pieces made by the children in a family are usually also placed inside other wares. If these "blow up" because of some flaw, damage to other wares is minimized. Some typical kiln loads included:

6 braseros, 4 macetas, 10 large toads, and 20 medium toads; 3 chimeneas,

2 braseros, 3 large toads, and 24 medium toads; 2 barriles, 10 macetas, and 50 medium toads; 10 large toads, 40 medium toads, 10 macetas, and

10 small toads; and 3 cantimploras and 50 lamparas.

The kiln is stacked above the level of its walls (Fig. TO), piled sometimes as high as 50 to 75 cm. before the wares are covered with one or two layers of large waster sherds. It is probably this loosely arranged covering that makes this type of kiln burn with such a successful updraft.

Another factor contributing to this strong updraft is the fact that ig­ nition is started even before the sherd covering is added. This is ac­ complished by wrapping a strip of kerosene-soaked rag around the end of a stick, lighting it with a match, and using it as a torch to light the ends of long pieces of cactus that extend from the hornillos. Almost the full lengths of these pieces extend outward from the kiln resting on l8l

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Figure TO. Loading the kiln. 182

the ground and are pushed in as they burn, the flames drawn inward and

upward in the kiln by the strong updraft. Great care is exercised in

pushing the fuel into the kiln, both to avoid breaking the wares and to

avoid personal injury from burns and from cactus thorns. Another danger

is posed by the everpresent scorpions that live in the cactus. Organ

cactus is particularly infested with them, adding to the reasons for its

lack of favor as a fuel. Scorpion bites are seldom fatal to adults but

are painful and slow to heal. An infected scorpion bite on one potter's

hand kept him from working for over a month.

Once the fire is lit and beginning to climb, Mario starts to cover

the wares, a procedure that takes 10 to 12 minutes (Fig. 71). He walks

around the kiln, reaching through the mounting flames to place large

waster sherds on the stack of greenware (Fig. 72). Fueling, neglected

while the wares are being covered, is resumed when the task is completed

and continues through the remainder of the firing cycle. At least one

other member of the family remains in the immediate vicinity of the kiln

during the firing, ready to help Mario in any way he requires. If it

is a school day and Juan and Salvador are gone, Teresa will stand by.

The main responsibility for successfully firing the week's work is

Mario's, and he does not leave the kiln until the job is done.

No two firings are identical, either in kiln load or in firing

schedule. Enough similarities exist, however, so that certain patterns

emerge. Several firings in the summer of 1975 were measured with a

Crusader chromel/alumel type K kiln pyrometer (Fig. 73) and time-temperature

curves were graphed (Figs. 74-79). From the time that the fire is first lit until about 20 minutes after the wares are covered, Mario adds fuel 183

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Figure 71. Covering the kiln with waster sherds. 184

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Figure 72. The completed sherd covering. 185

Figure 73. Adjusting the sherd covering. The pyrometer is visible resting on a cement block. 186

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slowly. This period, known to Anglo-American potters as "water smoking,"

ends when the temperature has reached about 225°. At this point, Mario

increases his rate of fueling so that the temperature climbs about 25 °

a minute until it peaks. With the increasing shortage of fuel, Mario fires

for only 80 to 90 minutes instead of the 2 hours or more that he prefers.

He stops fueling now when he runs out of fuel rather than at the end of

a particular length of time. Even with this attenuated schedule, he is

able to achieve temperatures of between 750° and 790° C, although on at

least one occasion he has run out of fuel even before 700° was reached.

Mario judges temperature by eye, a common practice among potters.

A chart by Fournier (1973:83) illustrates the correspondence of color to temperature: 400°C, black heat; 500°, dull red heat; 700°,red heat ;

850°, orange red heat; 1100°, yellow heat; and 1350°, white heat. Hammer

(1975:125) uses the term "first red" to describe

the incandescent glow of the pots in a kiln. The temperature is about 600°C (1112°F) and is an indication that dunting point 573° (l06s°F) has been passed and that ceramic change is almost complete. Where open flames are concerned or electric elements may be glowing, the first red is about 500°C (932°P).

This correspondence of color to temperature was confirmed with the kiln pyrometer. Mario says that he used to fire until the wares turned orange but that one more cargita of wood is required to achieve this. One of the firings during the summer of 1975 had to be halted at only 6 j O ° C as there was no more wood and Mario did not want to risk using tires alone (Fig. 7 8 ).

Tires are not added at the beginning of the firing cycle unless wood is in really short supply. Mario prefers to wait until the fire is burning well, the kiln is covered, and the "water smoking" period has 193

ended. Prom this point until firing is complete, he is "the servant of the fire," constantly circling the kiln, now adding wood (Fig. 80), now a few tire scraps, now adjusting a waster as flames hurst through the top, now withdrawing a few brands to keep the heat from increasing too rapidly. Over the roaring of the flames an occasional snapping sound can be heard, usually only the steam escaping from a damp piece of wood.

There is worry, however, until the kiln is opened and the wares are drawn, as the same sound might signal such firing accidents as the ex­ plosion of a too wet object or spalling caused by the inadvertent inclusion of some foreign matter such as a pebble or a bit of plaster.

As the end of the firing nears, a thin layer of white ash begins to accumulate on the sherds covering the top of the kiln. Through these sherds can be seen the luminous glow of the wares within. Unless the wood is gone sooner, firing ends when Mario is satisfied with the color, sometimes prying loose a waster with his poker to inspect the wares more closely. Any last bit of fuel is now shoved into the kiln and the hor- nillos are covered with their "doors." These "doors," ladrillos with one corner removed to better fit the triangular shape of the hornillos, are pushed against the openings and held firmly in place with heavy stones.

If the trader has ordered redwares, Mario is finished with the firing once the hornillos are closed. The fire is left to die down and the kiln is allowed to cool until the next morning when it will be unloaded.

Several further steps are needed for a reduction firing, if the trader has specified blackware. Shortly before the fire reaches its maximum temperature, Juan brings several buckets of water which he pours into a hole he has dug in the dirt near the kiln. As he pours the water 194 jflHH ■

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Figure 80. Adding fuel. 195

he mixes it with the loosened dirt with a stick. When enough of this

resulting mud has been formed, Mario begins to shovel it onto the wasters

on top of thakiln (Fig. 8l). He works as rapidly as possible and is

assisted by everyone present— Teresa, Salvador, and Juan— who apply the

mud with both hands. The scene, for the next few minutes, is one of

feverish activity. Loud hissing sounds are heard as each shovelful of

mud hits the hot wasters. The steam from the drying mud mixes with the

smoke from the fire and rises in a dense cloud. As soon as the top of

the kiln is covered with a layer of mud 10 to 15 cm. thick, Mario turns

his attention to the hornillos. He adds a little more fuel to each one

before he closes them with the ladrillos, which he then seals with mud.

Meanwhile, the others in the family have been watching the top of the

kiln. As the mud covering dries, it cracks. These cracks, signaled by bursts of smoke, must be sealed with fresh mud. This is plastered on with the hands, "buttered" into the crack until the smoke stops. The

internal temperature of the kiln has peaked with the covering of the top

and, when Mario is satisfied that it is completely sealed and in no

danger of further leaks, it is left to cool gradually, not to be unloaded

until the next day (Fig. 82).

Unloading the Kiln

The kiln is unloaded the first thing in the morning, often as early

as 5:30 or 6:00, of the day after the wares are fired. If the firing

was a reduction one, the dried mud must first be carefully chipped and

peeled from the waster sherds and replaced in the hole from which it was

dug. Next, the waster sherds are removed and stacked in neat piles near

the kiln but out of everyone's way. Finally, the still warm wares are 196

Figure 8l. Covering the kiln with mud. 197

Figure 82. The finished covering. 198

carefully unloaded. Each of these objects is tested as it is drawn from

the kiln by tapping it with a fingernail. If it "doesn't sound right,"

it is set aside. If it does not ring clearly, it has been incompletely

fired and will be refired with the next load. Broken wares are also set

aside; some can be mended, others are fit for nothing but kiln furniture.

Acceptable wares are sorted into rows according to type and size

as they are unloaded (Fig. 83). When unloading is complete, they are

counted and these that are "owned" by the trader are prepared for de­ livery. This may mean only dusting off the ash with a dry rag (Fig. 84) but, on some occasions, entire kiln loads have been left so greasy and

sooty from firing with tires that the wares had to be scrubbed in a bath of soapy water (Fig. 8 5 ). When they are clean, they are taken down the hill (Fig. 86) and delivered to Lopez or another pottery trader's shop or warehouse, one or two at a time until the trader's order is filled and

Mario receives the balance of the money due him. Mario tries to make and fire a few extra wares each week, both to allow for the inevitable accidents and to have a few on hand, if possible, when the occasional itinerant trader stops by. If the firing has been a success, the local trader's order will be filled and three to five pieces can be stockpiled against this visit. 199

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Figure 83- Unloading the kiln. 200

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Figure 84. Dusting a chimenea. 201

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Figure 85- Washing a toad. 202

Figure 86. Delivering the wares. CHAPTER IX

LEARNING TO BE A POTTER

Traditional Ways

When Mario and his family deliver the week's work to Lopez or some

other trader, they are participating in a marketing procedure that has

emerged only within the last generation. While in his warehouse or shop,

they are able to see some of the wide range of wares now being produced

in Acatlan. Despite their diversity, all of these have been made by the

same basic method as that described in Chapter VII— convex-molding, used

either alone or combined with one or another of the basic handbuilding techniques. This method of pottery-making, widespread throughout Mexico,

is of considerable antiquity; it might be posited that the methods used to teach these skills are equally ancient. With one or two exceptions of obviously recent origin, traditional teaching and learning patterns

seem relatively undisturbed.

Traditionally, in Acatlan as in other pottery-making towns, the craft is taught by parent to child, generation after generation. The strength

of the continuing tradition, however, probably owes as much to the eco­

nomics of the craft as it does to the fact that child rearing practices are conservative and slow to change. Pottery-making has always been such a poorly paid, low-status occupation that few potters have been able to maintain a separate workshop or studio away from home. This is the case in Acatlan where, like Mario, most potters and their families can afford to live and work in houses no larger than one or two rooms. In these,

203 204

and spilling out onto the patio, all activities both domestic and oc­ cupational must take place. Potters' children are seldom, therefore, far from the sight and sound of work in progress. The clutter of the acti­ vity surrounds them inside and outside the house. There are materials, tools, and wares in every stage of manufacture, as well as broken pieces waiting for repair and wasters from various firing accidents. From the time he is born, the potter's child observes all of this, as well as the sight of both parents and older siblings working. Since, typically, the nuclear family constitutes a pottery-making work group, the child gra­ dually assumes a greater share of the work as he grows older, learning the craft as he does so.

Mario and Teresa's nine children are at various stages in this learning process. Maria Cecilia, their youngest child, is not yet a year old, but she has already unconsciously learned a great deal about ceramics. As a newborn infant, she was carried slung in her mother's rebozo while her mother worked. Her cradle hangs in a corner of the room; from it, she can see everything that goes on (Figs. 8%, 88). At the age of 4 or 5 months, she was sometimes placed in a cardboard carton to sit and watch her parents and older siblings at work. The carton outgrown, she now observes the work in progress from the vantage point of a wheel-less walker. This is placed sometimes inside as materials are prepared or wares are formed, later in the week she sits outside under the trees watching the work as it is painted and polished and loaded into the kiln and fired. Soon she will learn to walk; as she does so, she will be attended constantly by her mother or an older sister until she learns to avoid the tools and supplies, the fragile greenware, and the finished work. 205

Figure 87• Rocking the baby. 206

Figure 88. Work resumed. 20T

The most important thing Mario's oldest son, Oscar, seems to have learned about pottery-making is that he dislikes it. Now 20, he should have mastered the craft and left home to start his own establishment in­ stead of joining the ranks of the defectors. Before he left home, his share of the work included taking the burro to the hills to look for fuel or to mine clay minerals. He had also helped to prepare these materials for use, mixed the clay body, painted and polished the finished wares

(Fig. 66), helped to load and unload the kiln, and carried the finished wares downhill to be sold. He had, in fact, participated in every stage of pottery-making except for the actual manufacture of the wares. Actually, although he had assumed the responsibility for these tasks, they had fallen to him by default as, after several years of unsuccessful attempts, Oscar had failed to master even the most elementary steps in forming the wares.

Possibly, his attitude towards the craft contributed to his ineptitude.

His departure to work for his aunt and to live in her pharmacy was a relief to the rest of the family.

The next seven Martinez children are involved in pottery to varying degrees. Even at the age of 3, children are capable of bringing tools

(thus learning them by name), bringing water, doing other short errands, and helping to clean up. Martin is so pleased to be asked to help that he must, at times, be diverted into some other activity. He will fill the water can cupful by cupful until it is in danger of overflowing.

Though no longer constrained by his cradle or the walker, Martin still sits for long periods watching his father work. When Veronica was 3, she was assigned the task of picking up cut-out clay scraps from the lëmparas and returning them to the clay barrel. Two years later, she 208

was carrying molds into the house from the yard while her sister, Alexan­ dra, a year older, was entrusted with carrying actual wares. They are still, at 7 and 8, the primary performers of these tasks, as Martin is as yet too young to trust with anything very fragile. He sometimes joins his sisters as they play house under the lemon tree, making their own dishes out of the family clay. Hopkins (1974:64) found children as young as 6 in Acatlan making simple press-molded details such as leaves, as well as shaping handles. That the younger Martinez children escape this drudgery is more likely due to the fact that Mario has little occasion to use such details rather than a preference for doing it himself.

Teresa and Maria Luisa, at 10 and 12, are given much more respon­ sibility than are their younger sisters. They can be entrusted with relatively large sums of money and sent on errands to the center of town or with complex messages to deliver to the doctor or the pottery trader.

At home, they clean, wash dishes, and take care of their younger siblings, leaving their mother free to work on pottery. When she was 11, Maria

Luisa began to learn pottery-making from her father. There is no par­ ticular right age for this, according to Mario; children are ready when they have developed the necessary strength and patience and when they really want to learn. Usually this point is reached at about the age of

9 or 10, sometimes earlier and sometimes, as was the case with Oscar, never reached.

Mario acknowledges that, by the time a potter's child is ready to sit down and learn to make pottery, he already knows a great deal, but

"it is in the head, not in the hands." He says that, although times have changed and people are now making many new and different things. 209 he tries to teach his children in the same way that he learned from his

father, the same way that everyone he knows was taught. Usually, the

first vessel that a child is taught to make is a hemispherical bowl with tripodal support, 10 to 12 cm. in diameter and 6 to 8 cm. in height

(Fig. 63).

Several critical techniques must be mastered with this first pro­ ject, the simplest of one-step vessels. First, of course, he must learn to wedge the paste until all of the air bubbles are removed without folding in any new ones in the process. Next, he must learn to sift the tierra colorada evenly over mat and mold— the paste will of course stick to any place not covered. On the other hand, if the child becomes over- enthusiastic or overcautious and uses too much tierra colorada, the excess will cause the paste to dry too quickly, possibly cracking before it is even removed from the mold. Work proceeds as earlier described for one-step vessels. Simple as the process appears to be, there are many hurdles to overcome; at any stage along the way, failure can occur.

Frequently, this failure is a result of unfamiliarity with the degree of moisture required at different steps in the manufacturing process. Too little moisture results in cracks, too much and the vessel collapses.

After a great deal of practice making bowls, the child goes on to the next project. This, called an "ollita," is nothing more than the bowl form built up with coils to form a neckless spherical jar.

These two vessel shapes are among the oldest found in Mesoamerica.

The tecomate, or neckless seed storage jar, was found both at Puerto

Marqués (Brush 1965) and at Purron Cave (MacNeish, Peterson, and Flannery

1 9 7 0 ). In both phases, tecomates are the dominant form, although convex- 210

walled bowls similar to Maria Luisa's are also found. The great anti­

quity of these two shapes suggests a similar age for the manufacturing

method. Molds are said by MacNeish, Peterson, and Flannery (1970:237)

to be a hallmark of the Late Post-classic; certainly, they are little re­

cognized before that period in the literature. The mold used by Maria

Luisa for both bowls and "ollitas" would hardly be recognized as such

by the archeologist. Nothing more than a roughened ceramic hemisphere

with no support, it might well be dismissed as a "common, coarse-paste,

domestic vessel."

Once he masters the first two forms, the potter's child is ad­

vanced to the next project— a small cantaro. This is somewhat more

difficult than the "ollita" or tecomate, as it has added handles, a

neck and rim, and a flat bottom rather than a tripodal support. Maria

Luisa will probably not learn to make these. Successful manufacture of

this form requires mastery of the parador, an artifact used only by men (and boys). As Foster (l960:210) discovered, women do not turn the

parador with the foot because of the immodest position they would be

forced to assume. A final technique, though of minor importance, is the vertical-halves mold. Although Mario seldom has occasion to use this, he feels that its mastery is a necessary step in the learning process.

Once a child can produce simple bowls, "ollitas," cantaros, and the frogs (Fig. 63) which utilize his vertical-halves mold, Mario is satisfied that there is a solid foundation on which to build. The child has now learned all of the techniques needed to make the entire spectrum of traditional and non-traditional Acatecan wares. Ahead of him, after 211

school and during summer vacations, are years of practice as he works

on larger and larger molds, adds new vessel forms, picks up speed, and

perfects his technique. Now a member of the family work group, he joins

in obtaining materials, preparing the paste, and finishing and firing

the wares.

Juan is 15 and has been making pottery since he was 9- By the

time he was 11 or 12, he was able to produce the smallest sizes of

lâmparas, macetas, toads (Fig. 89), and other items of the trader's weekly order. The smallest toad, for example, is 9 cm. high and 13.5 cm.

long. Now he is capable of making the largest of the seven sizes made

by the family— 4l cm. high and 57 cm. long, although this largest size mold is usually reserved for use by his father or by Salvador.

Salvador, at l8 , is almost as accomplished a potter as his father

and should, by now, have left home to start his own establishment or, alternatively, brought home a bride to help with the work. Instead, like

Oscar, his behavior reflects many of the changes affecting Acatecan cera­ mics. Rather than planning to leave home after his graduation from secun­ daria, he opted to remain at home and enroll in preparatoria, for which he must pay 100 pesos a month tuition plus the cost of books and supplies.

After he graduates, he expects to attend the State University in Puebla.

Salvador considered attending the Normal School in Acatlan but the program,

4 years after secundaria, would prepare him only for teaching in elementary school and he would like to teach at least at the high school level. In order to implement these ambitions, he spends his spare time experimenting with new designs, hoping to perfect a marketable line of his own. He has tried turtles (Fig. 90), goats, and ducks, but his greatest success so 212

Figure 89- Juan, at 12, making a toad. 213

Figure 90. Salvador watching his father make a turtle. 214 far has been a series of trees-of-life inspired by a picture in his sixth- grade geography text (Lopez 1968:118) (Figs. 91, 92). The style of these trees-of-life is very reminiscent of that of Heron; a central figure, or figures, supports an elaborate "tree," a framework of branches with leaves and flowers, as well as smaller figures. The central motif, one or two kangaroos, is taken from a lesson on Australia— certainly a departure from Acatlan's long ceramic tradition. Some of Juan's creations are just as far removed; these include King-Kong, "smiley-faces," and peace symbols.

Mario helps his sons with these, both with suggestions and with actual "hands on" assistance (Fig. 93). Mario is an excellent teacher: patient, kind, and encouraging. His comments and suggestions are always positive rather than critical, and he always seems to know when these are needed, as well as which moment to step in with physical help. Here he contributes no more than the exact touch needed to prevent a child's piece from becoming a discouraging failure; he never "takes over" the work.

There are several boys in the neighborhood, friends of his sons, who come to him for help and advice with their work. One of these, Jose, the son of a pig butcher, is more attracted to pottery-making than he is to his father's occupation. He spends all of the time he can watching Mario,

Salvador, and Juan at work and sometimes attempts a piece of his own.

Mario neither encourages him nor discourages him from his interest.

Mario is glad to help the boy and of course any diversion is welcome to relieve the day-to-day monotony, but he does not want to appear "to take the boy away from his father," who is neither a relative nor a compadre. 215

Figure 91. Kangaroo "tree-of-life." 216

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Figure 92. Reverse of Fig. 91 and a single example, 217

Figure 93. Mario helping Salvador. 21 8

New Ways

Fortunately for Jose, he no longer must rely on a parent or close relative to teach him pottery-making, as it is now an elective minor

subject taught at "Fray Bartolomé de las Casas," the junior high school he will attend. Other choices include carpentry, electricity, and plumbing

for boys, as well as cooking and sewing for girls. Both sexes can select typing or ceramics. Ceramics is not a very popular course among potters' children. Oscar chose carpentry instead, and Salvador transferred to typing after a single semester. Salvador dropped the course because he felt that he was learning very little and that that little was not going to be very useful to him. At the time that he took the course, the students were being taught slip-casting procedures almost exclusively.

Salvador spent almost the entire semester attempting a bust of Emiliano

Zapata; he would have preferred Juarez but never had an opportunity to use that mold. Finally achieving an unbroken casting, he spent the rest of the semester painting it before transferring to the typing class for his remaining five semesters at secundaria.

There have been a number of changes since Salvador took the ceramics courseji.n the fall of 1972, yet it is still not all that it might be. The new teacher is a native Acatecan who attempts to teach more traditional methods of pottery-making to his students. His is an uphill struggle for a number of reasons. The students must work standing at long tables, a position foreign to pottery-making anywhere (Fig. 94). There were supposed to be stools, some say, that were never sent by the Government; others say that the Science Department took them. Certainly, the traditional use of the parador cannot be taught at tables, yet no one thinks of sitting on the floor at school. 219

Figure 94. A ceramics class. 220

There are other difficulties. The clay, for which the students must pay a peso a kilo, is the standard Acatecan clay hody. The formula for this mixture was developed empirically by generations of Acatecan potters and is ideally suited to the many handbuilding techniques that are used by them. It is not at all suitable, however, for wheel throwing, which fortunately is not yet offered. The clay body is even less suited to the technique of slip-casting. The new teacher cannot eliminate this technique from his curriculum because the molds are there and the students demand to use them (Fig. 95). No matter how much the clay body is thinned, how­ ever, it does not become a suitable casting slip— it is too coarse and no deflocculant is added to prevent settling. The results are unsatis­ factory. There are voids, the clay body sticks to the molds and tears when attempts are made to unmold the piece, and frequently a successfully unmolded piece will collapse because its walls are too thin or it was unmolded prematurely. If the piece survives to be fired, it is in danger of being crushed by heavier handbuilt pieces, as the kiln and the method of loading and firing used are typically Acatecan and identical to that used by Mario.

There are also some discipline problems in the ceramics classes.

The teacher must teach 30 to 36 students at a time, not all of whom can be said to be seriously interested in the subject matter. Elective classes at "Fray Bartolomé de las Casas" meet twice a week for a 3-hour period.

In contrast, similar classes in the Baltimore and Frederick, Maryland, junior high schools meet for 50 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Although the rather high teacher : student ratio is similar in all cases, one teacher to between 30 and 36 students, the shorter time period seems better suited to the interest span of the age level. 221

Figure 95. A slip-cast head with three howls, 222

As in any classroom situation anywhere, students vary widely in

interest and motivation, and, as in any art class, they vary widely in

talent. There are some whose most creative endeavors include throwing

pellets of clay at the ceiling and timing how long it takes them to fall.

At the other end of the spectrum (or curve), there are students who are

not only highly motivated and talented hut who are also willing to work

at learning the craft of pottery-making. The considerable effort that

they must expend to overcome the many obstacles that confront them in

the ceramics class is, however, often rewarded with pieces that are good

enough to sell to a trader. An example of work of this caliber is a

mermaid playing a saxaphone made by a second-year student (Fig. 96 ).

Although an almost direct copy of a design originated by Heron Martinez

(and copied by him from Dona Rosa of Coyotepec), it is the very sort of work encouraged by the traders. Most of the students, however, fall

into a middle group between the delinquent and the inspired. They plod along, doing work that is good enough to get by. Most of their work is small, some traditional such as bowls (Fig. 95) and molcajetes,

other pieces more derivative of the new tourist-oriented market (Fig. 97).

On the whole, it is not felt that the school ceramics classes pose much of a threat, either to traditional family-oriented pottery-learning patterns or to the competition in the marketplace.

Although not open to Jose, there is still another major innovation

in pottery teaching methods in Acatlan, and this too shows little like­ lihood of threatening traditional pottery-learning patterns or of becoming established as a system. To the surprise of everyone in Acatlan, Heron has taken on three apprentices. These are not children or even teenagers. 223

Figure 96. Mermaid by second-year student. 224

Figure 97. Some other student work. 225

They are adult men, are from "por alia" (elsewhere than Acatlan), and, most amazing of all, they are said to actually pay Heron to learn his methods. As in most of Heron's actions, this has engendered widespread discussion and envy. Everyone would like to have apprentices who would not only pay to learn but also do all of the dirty work. No one knows how to find these "crazy ones" who want to become apprentices and, again.

Heron's good fortune is attributed to his publicity.

The Trader as Teacher

Among Acatecan potters who think about it, few would fail to acknow­ ledge the debt they owe to Heron. Although much of their weekly output includes copies of wares from all over Mexico and, indeed, now other parts of Latin America, much is copied from the one-of-a-kind pieces made by

Heron Martinez and a handful of other innovators. The average Acatecan potter is not an innovator. He is an artisan rather than an artist and, as Foster (1965:52) explains, "artisans are not artists almost by defini­ tion." Foster further states that

in spite of the presence of an occasional potter-artist in peasant societies, the evidence suggests that market demand rather than artistic urge is the primary cause of change.... In contemporary Mexico the tourist trade beyond question is the active force that is producing a florescence in pottery forms and designs.

In Acatlan, it is the traders who are primarily responsible, not only for the "florescence in pottery form and design," but also for the diffusion (now greatly accelerated) that had troubled Foster (l960:212) earlier. It is the traders who have both introduced new materials such as the acrylic paints and new techniques such as reduction firing, but also taught the potters how to use these new materials and techniques. 226

The traders have not, as yet, attempted to introduce either the use of glaze, the potter's wheel, or the technique of high-fired stoneware.

Adolfo Lopez says that these will come hut "no one in Acatlan is ready yet," and predicts that "within 10 years Acatlan will be just like

Tonala." (See Diaz I966. )

It is the incredible variety of pottery form and design that makes the greatest visual impact on a visitor to one of the pottery shops on the highway. Encouraging the development of this multiplicity is the area in which the traders have had the greatest impact. They have pur­ chased examples of wares they want to carry in their stocks from potters in distant pottery-making towns, often watching the potter as he made the object. Upon his return to Acatlan, the trader has then been able, with the help of one or more examples, to instruct the Acatecan potter in the proper reproduction of the design. The pear-shaped candle shields, called lémparas (Fig. 62), made by Mario and family illustrate this form of diffusion. Originally from San Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca, the Igmpara is one of the forms developed by the famous Dona Rosa. Lopez explains that it Is much more convenient for him to buy these as well as copies of other popular wares in Acatlan. It saves breakage in, shipping, and he need not overstock items that perhaps might not sell well. He has Herôn's work copied because Heron cannot meet the demand for his work by himself.

Besides providing examples of actual wares to copy, the trader also provides pictures. These pictures range from indistinct black-and-white newspaper photographs to the full color covers of Artesanos ^ Proveedores.

Picture postcards of wares in the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City are also used, providing the inspiration for some of the "empty revivals" 227

mentioned earlier. Some of the three-dimensional copies of these two-

dimensional prototypes lose much in the translation. Unseen or unclear

details are omitted or changed to something better understood, and the

resulting "copy" is so far from the original version as to be almost

itself an original. Some of these become successful enough to become

part of a particular potter's repertoire; some simply do not sell and

are discontinued.

In the desperate search for new ideas by trader and potter alike,

inspiration is being sought in a number of ways unheard of (and, of

course, unneeded) a generation ago. Besides newspaper, magazine., and book designs, input has been had from television and motion picture heroes and comic strip characters. With better roads than a generation ago and rapid, cheap bus transportation readily available, people are traveling more often and farther and are bringing back ideas and examples

from the museums and markets of Oaxaca and Puebla, as well as Mexico

City. Regional and nationwide competitions and exhibitions have offered

Acatecans other than Herén Martinez the opportunity to show their work, as well as to seethe best examples of work from other parts of the country. CHAPTER X

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Archeological Implications

Present-day Acatlan is still an important pottery-making center.

How long it will remain one in today’s rapidly changing Mexico is yet to he seen. How long it has been a pottery-making center is another question and one that can be answered only by some serious and intensive archeological work. Despite the feeling by Mario and his colleagues that Acatlan has "always" been a pottery town, there is little evidence to substantiate such a claim, as there has been very little archeological investigation of the area. This is unfortunate, as such investigations might help to solve a number of problems. Some of these problems speci­ fically involve ceramics, some examples are the origin of such wares as

Aztec I and Thin Orange and the antiquity of the convex mold. Other questions and problems are more basic to Mesoamerican archeology as a whole.

Acatlan was at the mid-point of one of the two main routes that connected Teotihuacan and Cholula with Monte Alban; presumably, it was equally subject to influences from both directions, as well as from

Tehuacan and Veracruz. According to Peterson (1962:80), Acatlan is in an area that is a key to understanding not only the Mixteca Alta, the

Mixtequilla, and surrounding territory, but to the rest of Mexico as well. Peterson emphasized the urgent need for archeological work at such sites as Tlilantongo, Coixtlahuaca, Coxcatlan, Tututepee,

228 229

Suchixtepec, Quiotepec, Huajuapan, Cuicatlan, and Teotitlan in addition

to Acatlan. In this area, the Mixteca Baja, and its towns of Acatlan,

Puebla, and Huajuapan, Oaxaca, Paddock (1966:176) has found evidence

of a "pre-Mixteca - Puebla" style. Paddock termed this region the

Nuine (literally. Hot Land) from the Alvarado dictionary of 1593. Pad­

dock later reports on a brief salvage project he completed in a tomb in

Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, some 62 km. to the south of Acatlan and also on the Pan American Highway. This project apparently confirmed Paddock's hypothesis that the Nuine, which had long been considered by archeologists to have been "too poor to have been of importance in ancient times," was the home of a distinctive regional art style previously unknown. In addition. Paddock (l970a:2) states, it

s e e m s to have been a meeting ground for the major early traditions whose capitols were at Teotihuacan, in the Valley of Mexico, and Monte Alban, in the Valley of Oaxaca.

According to Paddock (1966:178), one ancient trait unique to the

Nuine style was centered at Acatlan. This is an artifact complex known as cabecitas colosales, or colossal headlets, small pottery heads similar in conception to the Olmec colossal stone sculptures. Their similarity lies in the fact that the Acatecan pottery heads, although much smaller and much later (Paddock does not say how much smaller or how much later), are also headless and bodiless, naturalistic, and almost spherical. A number of these "headlets" are stored in the Museo Nacional in Mexico

City and Paddock has examined others of Acatecan provenience which he pictures in his Figures 199-207.

No one has found the "headlet" problem intriguing enough to warrant further investigation, and the situation has not changed since Moser

(1969:483) complained that 230

Though A. Espejo has made some explorations at Acatlan Viejo, the report remains unpublished. To my knowledge, no other excavations of a scientific nature have been conducted in this region. This is especially unfortunate since Espejo believes that she has found the antecedents of the Aztec I ceramic tradition at Acatlan.

Moser cites Jiménez Moreno (1966:62) who apparently had access to

Espejo's mimeographed report, although Jimenez Moreno himself does not

cite it.

More important to Mesoamerican archeology in general and to the

ceramics specialist in particular than the origin of Aztec I ware is

the origin of Thin Orange ware. Thin Orange was an important and widely

distributed tradeware that was made from the end of the Pre-classic

through Early and Late Classic. Its center of origin must have been in

the region of southern Puebla, according to Sotomayer and Castillo Tejero

(1963:18 ), but the exact location of its manufacture has yet to be de­

termined. Sherds of Thin Orange, as well as whole vessels, have been

found throughout Mesoamerica. Kidder, Jennings, and Shook (1946:197)

trace its distribution from northern Puebla to Copan, Honduras, and

illustrate some of known Acatlan provenience (l946:Fig. 196a,b,c,). The

range of Thin Orange has since been extended as far west as Colima and

as far north as Tula (Tolstoy 1958:20).

Shepard (1946:201) characterizes the style of Thin Orange as one of simplicity and restraint, with a delicacy and an appearance of fine workmanship that is exceptional. The thinness of the vessel walls is the most important and unusual attribute of the ware. Shepard feels that

an unusually strong, plastic clay would have been required to obtain the thinness of wall which characterizes the ware, and for this reason it could not successfully be imitated by 231

people possessing only ordinary clays. It is therefore certain that thin orange was made in a locality where high grade clay occurred, and what is essentially a technical feature was probably an important factor in its wide distribution.

Most scholars will agree with Kidder, Jennings, and Shook (1946:

198) who were sure that Thin Orange was made in a single locality; it

is the particular locality that is still in question. Leonard (1953:

443) is certain that she has narrowed the search to a pottery manu­

facturing site just north of the modern town of San Juan Ixcaquixtla.

She bases her belief that the potters who lived here were responsible

for Thin Orange ware on the following:

1. The finding of this ceramic ware exclusively in the tombs and cellars of the area north of San Juan Ixcaquixtla. 2. The existence of pieces that were unmarketable due to firing defects. 3 . The existence of coarse pieces possibly made for domestic use [my translation].

Paddock (1966:177) seems to accept Leonard's findings but reminds us that (1966:178)

in most of the Nuine region many local imitations of it, all failing to achieve the quality of the original, were made. Acatlan, also in southern Puebla, is the important modern pottery center where a ware very similar to ancient Thin Orange is produced today.

The wares produced in Acatlan today are certainly very similar in appearance to Thin Orange ware, both in color and in paste. Thinness of body wall is thought to be a desirable characteristic as well. Modern

Acatecan ceramics are probably made in much the same way as was Thin

Orange, and it is entirely possible that Leonard's (1953:443) third point could prove to be her most convincing argument in favor of an

Ixcaquixtlan origin for Thin Orange. The "coarse pieces possibly made for daily use" could well have been molds, although she later posits 232

that the "crude vessels of thin orange paste that were found" had been

made in the period of decadence following the fall of Teotihuacan.

That Leonard did not recognize the coarse pieces as molds is not

surprising even though Foster (1948:362) had earlier explained that

most archeologists are not well acquainted with modern techniques, and have not been trained to recognize molds, and partially to the usual fate of molds. With one exception (perhaps two) no molds, except those for figurines have been reported archéologieally. This is less signifi­ cant than appears at first thought. Unlike finished pot­ tery, and perhaps ritual ware, a mold is the lowliest of household artifacts. Never would it be placed in a grave with a deceased person, and other chances of survival are slight. If broken once or twice, a mold is patched together and reused. Not until it is completely shattered is it discarded, and then its component parts are scattered at random. Moreover, when reduced to sherds a plain mold with­ out effigy characteristics is practically indistinguishable from coarse utilitarian ware. Distinctive as they are, and with archeologists on the lookout for them, only a handful of Mochica molds have been discovered. With no distinctive marks, and with no one looking for them, it is not surprising that molds are unreported from Mexico.

Archeologists are now more aware than was Leonard of molds, their appearance, and the appearance of the finished wares. The work of Mac-

Neish, Peterson, and Flannery (1970:237) who found the use of molds wide­ spread in the Late Post-classic is an example cited earlier. Archeolo­ gists seem not aware of a second possible use for such wares as Leonard's

"crude vessels of thin orange paste"— i.e., use as saggars. Saggars have been defined by Fournier (1973:196) as clay boxes in which pottery is fired to protect the ware from flame and ash. They may be oval or cir­ cular; if square or oblong, they have rounded corners? The wall thick­ ness averages 20 mm. As Fournier explains, their use has declined with the coming of cleaner fuels and smaller kilns. The extremely low per­ centage of fire clouding and other firing related defects found on Thin

Orange ware may be due to the wares being fired in a protective outer 233

vessel, a vessel which was primarily intended to prevent the eggshell

thin walls of the Thin Orange from breaking as wares shifted during the

firing. Although they do not make vessels expressly to serve as saggars,

modern Acatecan potters place their more delicate wares in another shel­

tering vessel before firing them.

Saggars, or their equivalent, could have been used to protect Thin

Orange wares in an open or pit firing, and it is entirely possible that

they were fired in this fashion, as Sotomayor and Castillo Tejero (1963:

1 9 ) found a firing temperature range of only 500° to 600°C. It is more

likely, however, that Thin Orange wares, as well as many other pre-

conquest Mesoamerican ceramics, were fired in kilns that were very

similar to those in use in present-day Acatlan. Long thought to have been

a Spanish introduction, the first pre-Columbian kilns were only recently

discovered. Two were found during 1972 and 1973 in a residential zone

at Monte Alban and have been assigned to Monte Alban IIIB-IV, the Late

Classic. Winter and Payne (1976:37) find them of interest for three

reasons :

First, because of their similarity to the ceramic kilns used today in the Valley of Oaxaca, those of Monte Alban suggest a pre-Hispanic origin for an element of contem­ porary pottery techniques in Oaxaca; second, the kilns of Monte Alban provide us with data about the production of pottery in pre-Hispanic times, and third, the kilns provide us with relative data, as to domestic specialization in Monte Alban [my translation].

Winter and Payne (1976:37) compare the two kilns found with those in use in Santa Maria Atzompa and San Bartolo Coyotepec, two pottery- making towns in the Valley of Oaxaca. The larger of the two kilns found was 1.4 meters in diameter, an open cylinder with walls made of stones mixed with clay. The second was somewhat smaller, 1 to 1.1 meters in 234

diameter. In this were found a group of large sherds with indications

that they had heen used to cover the kiln during firing (Winter and Payne

1976:39).

Both of the Monte Alban kilns, as well as the habit of covering the

wares with large wasters during firing, are very similar to those des­

cribed earlier for modern Acatlan. There are other similarities between

Monte Alban and Acatlan; some wares described by Caso and Bernal (1965:

875) are an example.

Very coarse brown clay was used in the manufacture of ordinary pieces, such as great conical vases in the shape of flowerpots, comals, ollas, and also large boot-shaped vessels.

Two of these wares, the "flowerpot" and the "boot-shaped" vessel, pictured

in their Fig. 7 bear a strong resemblance to the molds used daily by

Mario Martinez and other Acatecan potters. Some Gray Wares, illustrated

in their Fig. 4, could also have been made in Acatlan. They are animal-

effigy vessels— a frog, a duck, and two snails. The four, also shown

in section, were probably formed on a mold similar in shape to those used

by Mario to make toads, also a "boot-shaped" vessel.

Both the "ordinary pieces" and the effigy vessels date from Monte

Alban I, the upper Pre-classic horizon as defined by Caso and Bernal

(1965:871). Their dates, which average 65O B.C., correspond to the

Mesoamerican Middle Pre-classic as defined by other writers, according to an editor's footnote. If indeed they are found upon reexamination to be mold-made, it would push the use of this method of pottery-making back to 2,000 years earlier than MacNeish, Peterson, and Flannery's

(1970:237) Late Post-classic. In light of Acatecan pottery teaching procedures earlier described, it can be posited that the use of molds 235

goes back to the beginnings of pottery-making in Mexico. Only more

archeological work done by archeologists aware of molds and their use

can confidently extend the spatial and temporal limits of this method,

but such extension is likely with further work.

The Future of Ceramics in Acatlan

Acatlan's ceramic tradition cannot be dated with any degree of

certainty until more archeological work is done. Since at least the

Late Post-classic, however, Acatecan pottery-making was (to apply the

terminology of General System Theory) a system in a state of relative

equilibrium. Recent changes in some subsystems of the craft, primarily

the economic and enculturation subsystems, as well as changes in the

Mexican economic system, have altered this state. These changes have placed pottery-making in a state of disequilibrium, a state from which

it must either move up to a higher state of equilibrium or fail to survive.

What further changes must take place to decide the fate of the pottery- making system one way or another? At this point, it seems likely that

Acatecan pottery-making, by selecting certain changes and innovations

and rejecting others, will survive.

Meggers (1975:19) asks "what circumstances encourage acceptance of

innovations, whether generated locally or obtained from elsewhere?" In

Acatlan, as well as in many other Mexican craft centers, these circum­

stances have been primarily economic. With the decline in demand for traditional wares, craftsmen have accepted design innovations where they would not have accepted a change in manufacturing method. Diaz

(1966:183) found this to be the case in Tonala, where a

Tonaltecan potter will make any clay object which can be made by the molding method he is accustomed to and by using 236

his kind of kiln. These latter two limitations are more important than the aesthetic one. What changes is the shape of the object or the kind of decoration used; what remains the same is the technique of manufacture, the division of labor, and the organization of work.

Similar problems were faced by Zapotecan weavers in Teotitlan del

Valle, Oaxaca, and similar solutions were found. As increasing indus­ trialization of Mexico's textile industry has brought inexpensive, factory-woven, synthetic yard-goods to the most remote village markets, there has been a concomitant lessening of demand for the relatively expensive, hand-woven, woolen blankets and serapes of Teotitlan. As

Teotitleco weavers increasingly turned to the tourist markets in Mitla and Oaxaca City, they must have become as desperate for new marketable ideas as Acatecan potters. Teotitleco weavers also relied heavily at first on stepped-fret designs in "empty revival" in a production called the "Mitla blanket" (Fig. 98). By 1970, they were more than ready to accept some fairly drastic stylistic innovations which were set in motion by an outside source. This took the form, according to Miller (1975:7), of an unknown woman who arrived in the village with a collection of contemporary art books and magazines. Weavers now include designs by

Miro (Fig. 99), Picasso (Fig. 100), Vasarely, Matisse, Calder, and Klee, among others (Fig. lOl), in their repertoires. Yet, as Miller is careful to point out, both pre-Columbian dyes and rudimentary looms are still in use.

In discussing innovation among Papago Indian potters, Fontana et al. (1962:82) also stress that

potters who have been "trained" in traditional Papago pottery techniques adhere to those techniques even when shown others ....nontraditional forms are made in traditional ways. The gathering and preparation of clay is the same; the modeling or 237

Figure 98. "Mitla" blanket in Teotitlan. 238

I

Figure 99. "Miro blanket 239

Figure 100. "Picasso" blanket. 240

Figure 101. Blanket of unknown design provenience, 24l

molding with paddle-and-anvil and coiling are the same; the slipping is the same; and the firing is the same.

In describing the work of one particular Papago potter, Laura

Kerman, Fontana et al. (1962:115) stress her role as an "innovator."

Although other Papago potters have been slow to follow her example, the

authors suggest that she may not be "atypical of 'aberrant' potters in

other cultures and at other times." Acatecan potters, on the contrary,

have been more than anxious to follow the lead of their resident "aber­

rant," Heron Martinez. What was lacking, perhaps, among the Papago

was economic motivation.

Earlier cited was Foster's (1960:212) statement that "diffusion

is rapidly wiping out many regional distinctions in Mexican ceramics."

Just as regional styles have blended or are blending into a national

style, national styles are merging into a contemporary international

style. "Aberrant innovators," such as H e r o n Martinez, Jorge Wilmot,

Aurelio Flores, and other prominent Mexican potters, are becoming as well known for their work as Peter Voulkos, Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso,

Bernard Leach, or Hamada. Teotitlecan weavers— Isaac Vâsquez Garcia and

Alberto Vâsquez— have shown their work in Paris, New York, and California,

as well as Mexico City. Part of a worldwide revival of interest, this renaissance in Mexican handicrafts has attracted the Seventh Assembly of the World Crafts Council and the Second International Exposition of

World Crafts, both of which met simultaneously in Mexico. The point has been reached, according to Nelson (1971:70),where "a modern ceramist may have more in common with a craftsman in another country than with the potter down the street." 242

The impact of these trends is just beginning to be felt at the village level. Although it is perhaps premature to predict the end result, an analogue can be found in the southwestern United States.

In a discussion of similar trends, Spicer (1962:559) draws parallels between Navajo weaving and Pueblo pottery-making, in that both groups have developed into distinct artistic traditions. The first tradition, that of cheap and rapid production to meet the demands of the tourist trade, is still typical of the great mass of the Navajo blanket trade.

The second tradition is that of production for an upper income clientele of sophisticated and esthetically conscious buyers. Certainly there is nothing new about the latter; people who can afford it have always wanted nothing but the best in the material culture with which they surround themselves. In discussing the three types of pottery most widely dis­ tributed in Mesoamerica, Thin Orange, Fine Orange, and Plumbate, Shepard

(1968:355) posited that the "wide distribution of these three types points to the possibility of a general preference for pottery that is technically superior." Minton and Wedgewood could be substituted in a discussion of present-day ceramic preference among the well-to-do.

Spicer's first tradition, that of "cheap and rapid production to meet the demands of the tourist trade," is not limited to Navajo weaving.

In a discussion of "commercial" and "souvenir" arts, Graburn (1970:196) finds that

this market has been growing in recent decades with the increasing affluence of the white populations and the 'proletarianization' of art itself. Art is no longer purchased by the rich few. The turmoil in our own artistic productions, combined with ever increasing travel and the lure of exotica and non-machine age crafts, have elevated minority ethnic arts from curiosities to much desired arts, with a market of hundreds of thousands or millions. 243

To Nelson {l971’-70), this increased market represents

the desire to possess and to use an object bearing the imaginative touch of the human hand represents a natural reaction against the sterility of industrially produced products, and this is responsible for the recent widespread interest in all the crafts.

In light of the present heavy demand for craft wares, including

Mexican pottery, Acatecan pottery-making seems to be in no danger of disappearing. And, despite the many changes in marketing procedures and pottery design, manufacturing methods are most likely to remain unchanged. In many ways, the convex mold is superior to the potter's wheel for production work. Larger pieces can be made by this process than on the wheel, it is more rapid, a form can be reproduced an infinite number of times, and while the potter is able to produce radially sym­ metrical forms on a convex mold, he is not limited to these as he would be on the potter's wheel. For these reasons rather than tradition,

Acatecan potters, like other Mexican potters accustomed to convex molding, will continue to do so. In the past, anthropologists have spoken of one group or another "rejecting" or "failing to accept" the potter's wheel even after it had been "introduced." As can be seen, the reasons for "rejecting" the wheel are valid, and a possibly 7,000-year-old method of pottery-making is likely to continue.

From its recent state of disequilibrium, Acatecan pottery-making seems to be in the process of reintegrating on two separate levels of equilibrium rather than one. These two levels can be equated with Spicer's two traditions in Navajo weaving and Pueblo pottery-making, with the work of Heron and Mario typical of the work of both levels. With in­ creased demand for pottery, the gap between the two levels will continue 244

to widen. The better craftsmen such as Mario will more than likely

move up to the upper level of production, while others are doubling

and even tripling their turnout of ever smaller and more badly made pieces.

A tourist in the Casa Lopez was heard to remark upon viewing the plethora of wares that "these people are being ruined; their traditions are gone." After Miller's (1975:7) article about Teotitlân weavers appeared in Crafts Horizons, the prestigous journal of the American

Crafts Council, a number of members wrote to the editor complaining that

Teotitleco weavers were being "ruined." Yet, as Graburn (1976:13) reminds us.

The persistence of traditional arts and crafts depends on: (l) continued demand for the items, (2) availability of the traditional raw materials, (3) time to work and lack of competing attractions, (4) knowledge of the skills and the aesthetics of the arts, (5) rewards and prestige from peer- group members, (6) the role of the items in supporting the belief systems and ritual or gift-exchange systems. Much as we are nostalgic about these loved arts, people do not go on making them for our pleasure if our society and technology have destroyed the incentive to do so. They go off and become bus-drivers or betel-nut sellers.

Graburn later states that "European and Western society in general, while promoting and rewarding changes in its own arts and sciences, bemoans the same in others." The "ruined" weavers in Teotitlan are not bemoaning the rewards brought to them by the changes in their weaving patterns. They have rebuilt their houses with plastered walls, tiled floors, and fluores­ cent shop lights over their looms. Their increased prosperity is beginning to be reflected in the better health and nutrition of their families, the better education of their children, and their greater hopes for the future.

As Acatecan pottery-making stabilizes at a higher level, perhaps the 245

"ruined" potters will be able to emulate the prosperity of the weavers

and thus escape the "miserably low incomes" of Foster’s (196Tb:6l)

concern.

Further Note

Archeologists are increasingly turning to ethnographic research

as an aid in the interpretation of archeological data. The necessity

for this is explained by Deetz (1960:123), who states that

Material culture of living societies has traditionally been the domain of the ethnographers and they have not been as concerned with this aspect as with other more exciting subjects.

Earlier cited was Leone's (1972:26) similar complaint about the long

neglect by ethnographers of studies of material culture. Such dis­

satisfaction with the work of ethnographers has led to the emergence

of a new field of inquiry within the subdiscipline of archeology.

Termed "ethnoarcheology," its literature is, as yet, scant though

diverse. Examples include Gold's (1968) study of stone tool-making

in western Australia and Oswalt and Van Stone's (1967) study of innova­

tion in Eskimo artifacts. Studies of pottery-making include Stanis-

lawski (1969) who worked with the Hopi and Longacre's recent and as yet unpublished work with the Kalinga of the Philippines.

The methodology of ethnoarcheology includes a concern with fact

gathering that could almost be called Neo-Boasian. The Boasian ethno­ grapher was concerned, as is the ethnoarcheologist, with the collection of a body of data about a culture before that culture disappeared. The ethnoarcheologist, working against even greater time pressures, must do remedial ethnography to discover those aspects of material culture which have failed to interest the ethnographers and which are necessary to his 246

archeological investigations. The present study falls within this cate­

gory. Intended as a contribution to Mesoamerican archeology in general,

and the region of southern Puebla in particular, its purpose has been to

shed some light on pre-Columbian pottery-making methods. Much more work of this nature is needed before we can reach a clear understanding of the role of the craftsman and his craft in Mexico before the Conquest.

As an integral part of man's culture, his material technology is the means man uses to control or change his environment.

As in any problem-oriented research, the quest for answers to one question exposes other questions to view. Changing styles in ceramics have always been indicative of changes in the cultures of the potters who made them. The rapidly changing ceramics of AcatIan are a reflection of the rapidly changing culture and technology of modern Mexico. How have these changes affected the lives of Acatecan potters? As Leone

(1972:26) states,

we know almost nothing about the effects of technology and material culture on other cultural subsystems and vice versa.

Future research should concentrate on some of these subsystems; the economics of pottery-making, the seemingly high incidence of drinking among potters, and the effects of the changing technology on the social structure of the potters are some examples. One of the most frequent final statements found in scholarly writing is a plea for more work to be done in the area. In the case of Acatlan, this is certainly necessary advice. APPENDIX

TECHNOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

The mineral composition of the components of the clay body used

by Mario Martinez were measured on a North American Philips Electronics

X-ray generator and diffractometer. Earlier pétrographie examination

of these materials under a polarizing microscope had shown only quartz

as a component of the clay body.

Tierra colorada Used for 50% of the clay body. Kaolinite, illite,

very fine grained quartz colored by hematite. Contains no

montmorillonite.

Arena Used for 25% of the clay body. Talc with minor admixture of

"illite" (a partially degraded muscovite).

Barro negro Used for 25% of the clay body. Predominantly montmorillonite

with less than 10% "illite." (This is not an inter-layered clay

but a physical mixture.)

Tinta Used as a paint applied before firing. Illite and kaolinite

colored with hematite.

Note: Both oriented and unoriented samples were studied. Glycolation and heat treatment were used to confirm the identification of the clay minerals.

247 GLOSSARY

Definitions reflect usage local to Acatlan, Puebla, which differs in some instances from that current in other areas of Mexico. adobe sun-dried building blocks made of clay or mud. aguardiente an untaxed liquor similar to rum made of sugarcane.

A.lma literally, a soul. A base or core made of crumpled or rolled-up newspaper used in place of a molde to support some clay objects as they are made. anafre a small metal charcoal-burning stove. anfora amphora, an alternative term for cantimplora, a three-handled water storage jar 0.8 to 1.0 meter high (Fig. 55). arena literally, sand; one of the components of the clay body; see Appendix. azotador a lump of clay formed into the shape of a pestle, fired and used as a pottery-making tool in the State of Oaxaca. barril a pottery water storage container 0.75 to 1.0 meter high (Fig. 18). barrio a neighborhood or section of a town, often corresponding to a ward in a U.S. city. barro negro literally, black clay ; one of the components of the clay body; see Appendix. brasero a ceramic brazier usually used to cook an olla of beans (Fig. 6l). cabecitas colosales literally, large little heads; pre-Columbian pottery artifacts of Acatecan provenience. cacicazgo a chieftainship. cacique a native leader, or chief. campesino a person from the country; a peasant.

248 249 cântaro a pottery water bottle 45 to 50 centimeters high with either 3 or 4 vertical handles (Figs. 6, 22). cantimplora a pottery water storage vessel with a restricted neck and 3 vertical handles from 0.8 to 1.0 meter high; anfora is an alternative term (Fig. 55). cargita the amount of fuel or other load that can be carried by one burro (Fig. 39). cazuela a shallow casserole used for cooking and serving; they usually have 2 loop handles (Fig. 8). centavo one-hundredth of a peso; an amount so small that it is no longer coined. coda literally, elbow; in southern Puebla, the gesture of clapping the left elbow with the right hand, meaning "cheap" or "stingy." comal a metal or pottery griddle on which tortillas are baked over an open flame (Fig. 11). compadre the parent of one's godchild, or the godparent of one's own child. compadrazgo literally, co-parenthood; an institution of fictive kinship. consola a piece of furniture usually containing a radio and phonograph and, often, a television set. cuchillo a small knife, with no handle, made of half of a hacksaw blade, used as a pottery-making tool. chimbul an alternative term for cântaro, a pottery water bottle (Fig. 6, 22). chimenea a pottery space heater (Figs. 20, 21, 84). chorreada a multicolored effect achieved with glaze, common to some Oaxacan wares (Fig, 9). distrito the largest political division of a Mexican State, similar to a U.S. county. elote a corncob used as a pottery-making tool (Fig. 53). fanâtiCO a sports fan, particularly of baseball (Fig. 28). fiesta almost any kind of preplanned social activity, with the exception of funerals. 250 greca reversed spiral or stepped fret motif, either painted or modeled (Fig. l6).

Gringo anyone from the United States, Canada, or Europe. guayahera a pleated, open-collared shirt worn without a tie; originally from Cuba, now manufactured in Yucatan. hornillo firemouth of a kiln (Fig 50). homo a kiln (Fig. 50). huaraches sandals woven of narrow strips of leather, often with soles made of automobile tires. indigenismo the current vogue for reviving Mexico's Indian past. jiotilla a species of cactus, Escontria chiltilla, used for kiln fuel.

,jip a Mexicanization of the U.S. slang term "hip." ladrillo fired clay tile or brick (Fig. 44). làmpara pottery candle shield (Fig. 62). liquado iced, noncarbonated drink made with fruit juice and water; now often made in a blender. maceta a head or flowerpot; flowerpots in the shape of heads are, therefore, visual puns (Fig. 58). machete a large, broad, heavy, all-purpose knife. maestro literally, master; a term of respect accorded to teachers and master craftsmen. mano a handstone or pestle, rolled across a metate to grind corn (Fig. 11). masa dough made of corn used for tortillas. mestizo a person of mixed Spanish and Indian descent. metate a concave grinding stone or mortar used with a mano (Fig. ll), mina mine (Figs. 32, 33, 34, 38).

Mixteca indigenous inhabitants of the States of Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrero, Mexico. 251

molcajete a tripodal pottery grinding bowl with a raised design on the interior. molde a mold (Figs. 47, 48). molina nixtamel a town or neighborhood mill where cooked corn is ground into masa or dough for the individual customer. municipio a political entity roughly equivalent to a township in the United States. norteamericano anything, or anyone, from the United States. olla a ceramic vessel in which beans are cooked (Figs. 8, 9, 27). ollita any small vessel; more locally, a neckless spherical jar re­ sembling a tecomate.

6rgano the popular name for two large species of cactus, Cereus marginatus and Cereus gemmatus. The name is taken from their resemblance to a pipe organ. palo a wooden stick or club (Fig. 35). palo de sauce a small willow stick or wand, used as a ceramic tool (Fig. 42). parador a flat-bottomed, cylindrical turntable or support used while making pottery. They vary in diameter from 40 to 50 centimeters (Figs. 44, 45). paseo a twilight or evening walk around the park. pepino the fruit of any of a number of species of cucurbit, usually a wild cucumber. petate a woven mat made of palm or tule used for sleeping or as a work surface for pottery-making (Figs. 4, 29). peso a Mexican coin formerly worth 8 cents in U. S. currency, now worth 4 cents. pica a straight-shafted, pointed steel tool used to prise loose clay body materials at the mine (Fig. 32). pila a metal or concrete water storage tank. pistolero a bandit or gangster. plato a plate. 252

por alla literally, over yonder; anywhere else than one's present location.

posada an inn or hoarding-house.

pozolero a barrel-shaped pottery liner for a spring or natural well.

preparatoria a senior high school.

primeria a primary school.

quinceanos the fifteenth birthday, an important rite of passage for Mexican girls that is usually marked with a fiesta.

rana frog (Fig. 63).

rebozo a long rectangular shawl.

refresco a carbonated soft drink.

refresqueria a stand or small shop where refrescos are sold.

secundaria a junior high school.

serape a blanket or poncho.

■significado significance or meaning.

sombrero hat. tabla a fired clay disc used to provide a clean, smooth work surface for pottery making or as a support for work in progress. taco a crisp fried tortilla filled with meat or other filling. taza a handled coffee cup. tecomate a neckless, spherical seed storage jar.

Tesaha an alternative spelling of Tizaa. tienda a small neighborhood general store.

Tierra Caliente literally, hot land; Veracruz. tierra colorada literally, colored earth; one of the components of the clay body; see Appendix. tigre a jaguar or any other large cat. tinaja a water storage jar almost as wide as high, the dimensions of which range from 50 centimeters to 1 meter. 253

tinta a mixture used to paint greenware before firing; see Appendix.

Tizaa the local name for the Acatlan River; also applied to,the im­ mediate region of the town. tortilla a flat, thin cake of corn dough baked on a comal; by extension, a flat thin disc of clay (Fig. ll). urna the generic term now applied to any large vessel; more properly, one with a narrow footed base (Fig. 6%). zocalo the central square, or park, in a town. REFERENCES CITED

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